After Aperture: Return
by Tib Dunncan
Summary: He used to dwell on it, the loneliness, the self-pity. It had hurt, quite a bit, and he decided that he could pretend. Pretend that everything was fine, and maybe the hurt would go away. It took a long time, many years of sleeping and reading Machiavelli under the apple tree, but the hurt did go away, a bit. Thirty five years after 'her day.' "Hello, moron."
1. The Dream

The sky outside the window was dark with rainclouds that rolled in from all directions. He thought that perhaps it was a bit sad that, after all this time, he was still terrified of storms like these, but she never seemed to mind. He lay there, curled around her, his form with its excess of limbs cupping hers perfectly. They were comfortable, on nights like this, and it made the electrical storm raging outside all the less terrible. They were half-propped up on a mountain of pillows; he had one arm around the curve of her stomach and the other tucked away under his head. He was more than content. Wheatley loved spending nights with her in the guest room – it wasn't so lonely, with her.

She shifted under his arm, sighing deeply, and turned over to cuddle into his chest.

"I have a question," she said, pressing her cheek against his shoulder as she looked up at him.

He smiled and rubbed his hand along her spine. "Ask away."

Chell pursed her lips and looked him in the eye, unsure of how to phrase her question, or if he'd even understand. "Back at Aperture," she started slowly, and she could see his demeanor change instantly. "After the elevator broke, she and I ended up in a lower part of the facility, one of the sealed-off areas you'd told me about. And there was an old testing track down there. I started testing, I guess, and when I did, a man came over the speakers, said that his name was Cave Johnson," she could see his lips curve downward in a slight frown, out of either curiosity or vague recollection, she couldn't tell which. "He said he owned Aperture and he had a secretary; _her_ name was Caroline. They were pre-recorded messages, from centuries ago, from Aperture's beginnings. The further I went, the more I heard about Cave and Caroline. Eventually I found GLaDOS in a bird's nest, and it was making short work of the potato you put her in. That's when I picked her up and we went through the rest of the tracks. The first time Caroline came over the intercom, she just _knew_ her, but she didn't know from where and when she finally _did_ figure it out, she didn't tell me. It wasn't until one of the last chambers on the track that Cave said that he was dying, and urged the engineers to put his consciousness into a computer, to run the facility forever. But he said that, if he died before they _could_, he wanted Caroline to become head of the company. It was a process called Brain Mapping, and it allowed them to store a human mind in an AI-"

He smiled down at her, running a hand through her hair. "I thought this was a question."

She laughed, and something crossed his mind about her picking up his tendency to ramble. "Fine. If all Aperture AIs are the result of Brain Mapping, do you remember being human?"

The playful glint left his eyes almost immediately, the smile falling. He looked away and rested his chin on top of her head. "N-no. No. Can't say I do." He chuckled. "Though, to be honest, if it took being put into a root vegetable and everything just short of meeting Her human self for _Her_ to remember, I don't think we're supposed to.

She sighed, twisting the thin gold chain between her fingers. Wheatley looked down, noticing the necklace; she always wore it, with the exception of bathing and sleeping. "Guess not." She said.

"Besides," he said, "It's not like I'm missing anything, right? I like being me – for the most part. Some things I wish they'd fixed in development, obviously, but… for the most part…"

Her fingers weaved between his. "I like you, too. Just like this." She said, gently. The years at Aperture had destroyed what little self esteem he'd had to begin with, and she'd taken to building up from the cracked foundation.

He shrugged as best he could given the position. "S'pose I don't really have any _need_ to remember being human. What good would that do me? I can't see it having a good outcome. And you know, some of the bots might not have been able to handle it – imagine I was one of the lucky ones, who got put in an android. What about someone who got stuck in a sphere or a turret or – or a _cube_! God, that must be awful. I mean, just think about Her – two completely different people, all crammed into one. Won't work, right? Guess we're all just happier, this way."

"Yeah…" she said slowly, wrapping an arm around him.

"Don't worry about me," he said, kissing the crown of her head. "I won't! And look at it this way – we're two peas in a pod, you and me! What with the amnesia thing, not remembering who we used to be. And it's okay, isn't it? It's okay like this."

She buried her face into his chest and he knew, no, it _wasn't_ okay, not to her. She hated not knowing, having to struggle to remember the simplest details about a society long gone, about who she is and what her life was like.

He held her closer, one hand on the small of her back and the other cradling the back of her head. He whispered to her, reassuring her that it _was_ okay, everything was okay.

There was a familiar click in the back of his neck.

Wheatley hit the floor with a thud.

He groaned as he picked himself up, rising to his hands and knees slowly. There was the sound of his clothes rustling, the sound of the carpet scratching against his skin; but above all, there was the steady tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock; not even the sound of his internals could seem to drown it out. He hummed irritably and straightened himself out, rising from the floor. He _hated_ that clock, and had resolved not to change its batteries when it died. He hated that clock and he hated that noise because all it did was remind him of how much time had passed since her day.

Still, he knew that when the time came, he would leave the clock dormant for a few days at the most before changing its batteries again. The noise, being reminded every second he heard it, was the lesser of two evils.

The greater was silence.

The world was always quiet as the years passed. That's why he talked to himself. The silence, after so long, was not unlike that of the silence of the facility, and Wheatley dreaded the silence. All it did was remind him how alone he was. Oh, sure, it was different, in a way: it was his life, he was free, and she was always there to listen. Often, he'd sit under the apple tree they'd planted years ago, at her grave and talk to her; He'd tell her how he's been, what sort of interesting things he'd found in the city. Sometimes he'd read to her from one of his books. When he did this, he usually read from Machiavelli's The Prince, because she gave it to him. But most of the time, he just sat there and told her how much he missed her. He could, and often did, spend hours sitting at the foot of her grave, talking to her. But he was still alone.

That wasn't all he did, though. He kept the house and made trips to the city like they used to, bringing home odd bits and bobs that he thought might be useful - or would have been useful to her. He still didn't like to stray too far from the house, often sticking around the suburbs where he lived, sometimes venturing further into the city. Very rarely did he visit their old house, but he _never_ went past that, into the wheat. He knew what was on the other side of that house and he did _not_ want to go back. He made his mind up when she died, promising himself, and her, that he would never go back.

He tried his hand at a number of different things to pass the time. Mechanics failed miserably – all these years outside of the Facility certainly hadn't improved his skills with other machines. Gardening was fruitless, quite literally. So, he'd stuck to reading.

But what he did mostly, was sleep. Without her around, charging had become so much more difficult than it already had been. He was forced to plug himself in, which proved bothersome.

He had those 'dreams,' the unwanted subconscious access to his memory banks. The first time this had happened after her death, it had felt like someone had run an ice cold electric charge through his body. One moment, he was lying peacefully on the couch with her safe in his arms again, like nothing had ever happened. They'd shared many nights like this, and he counted his blessings that they could continue like this, together. Then, there was a soft click, the jolt of being forced out of sleep, and the sudden, empty realization that she was _gone_. More accurately, she'd never been there in the first place.

Reversely, he'd realized, without her, he had no one to unplug him from his sleep, instead having to rely on the chance of disconnection. He'd woken up from his pleasant dreams to find the leaves falling off of the apple tree; he'd been asleep for three months. This left a lead weight in his chest, sufficient to fill the hole that had settled there upon awaking. It was dangerous, to sleep without anyone to unplug him, he knew this. He could end up sleeping forever. Absently, his mind drifted to the dream, how real she had felt in his arms, her voice, quiet and light as they talked.

Maybe sleeping forever wasn't such a bad thing.

He used to dwell on it, the loneliness, the self-pity. It had hurt, quite a bit, and he decided that he could _pretend_. _Pretend_ that everything was fine, and maybe the hurt would go away. It took a long time, many years of sleeping and reading Machiavelli under the apple tree, but the hurt _did_ go away, a bit. Every glance out the back window, or at her bedroom door, the pangs of sadness were less and less every day and, while they never disappeared completely, it became bearable.

Perhaps it was a good thing, that he was awake now. Sure, he wanted to sleep – it was that time of year again, closer and closer every day to _her_ day. He wanted to sleep through it, he wanted not to know, but he knew that if he slept, she would be all he dreamt about, those last few minutes and her last few breaths. The kiss, her whisper…

He shook his head, trying to physically dispel the thought of what happened next. He didn't want to think about that hard-drive crushing moment. He wanted to remember everything, every minute of their time together, except for that.

He didn't want to sleep if he could help it, not this close to her day.

He glanced at the radio on the mantle; the house hadn't changed since she'd died. His footsteps were quick as he walked over to it, his fingers reaching for the cream colored dials. They'd had it forever, almost since they'd moved into the house, but it hadn't been used since he'd brought it home. It never worked, but it'd been so long, maybe that radio station had fixed itself…

There was a wild hiss of static as he twisted the dial, looking for the correct frequency; there was the soft beat of music-

He'd gone too far, trying to backtrack to find the forlorn radio station, slower this time…

The cheery tune drifted wearily out of the speakers.

He lowered himself into the couch where he spent most of his nights - both on the charger and off – closed his eyes, and listened to the rhythm of the song.

He smiled fondly. This was a pleasant memory, where he'd been helpful and where they'd ended the night together, talking fearlessly about buttons and cubes and the absurd things the scientists had done during Wheatley's tenure at the facility. He was glad the station had fixed whatever had happened to it years ago. He liked this song, it almost reminded him of something… He pushed the thought aside, focusing on the song and the memory it elicited.

It didn't last very long. Their conversation turned to fuzz along with the music. He picked the small device from his lap and fiddled irritably with the dial for a moment.

He froze; the music had stopped all together now, replaced by a sound that made his motor whirr and his fans kick up.

"Hello, _moron_."

He swallowed hard and removed his fingers from the knob, taking the radio from his lap and setting it on the small table in front of him. Every thought had frozen, and he stared at the machine as if it were going to rear up and bite him.

Knowing Her, it might.

Instead, more static filled the air, before her cool voice returned, biting and sour and wrong in every way. "It's been a _long_ time. Fifty two years, six months, five days twelve hours and thirty two minutes, to be exact, since the lunatic let you fly into the void of space." She said. Wheatley felt something spark inside of him at her words, a mixture of emotions. Had it really been that long? Fifty two year? "Not much of a surprise she's dead, really." She put emphasis on that word, he was sure of it. _Dead._ She just had to remind him. "Not after dealing with _you_. You don't even know what you did to her, do you?" there was a beat of silence over the transmission, as if she expected him to answer her. "She's dead because of _you_, moron. _You_ did that to her."

Wheatley's hands had clenched into fists, and he bit down hard on his lip, bowing his head. It wasn't true. She lies, that's what she does. Nothing but lies. He wanted to turn the radio off. He didn't want to listen to Her. But he didn't move.

"I'm sure she forgives you. After all, you spent nearly twenty years together, didn't you? And she didn't try to kill you. It didn't even cross her mind… _often._"

He stiffened at her statement. Chell had never tried to hurt him, not since that morning with the lamp. Her last words were "I love you," she hadn't _wanted_ to hurt him.

"Normally, I'd ask something along the lines of 'I bet you're wondering how I know this.' However, knowing you, that's the last thing on your mind, incompetent as you are. So I'll tell you: I've taken up a new hobby."

He'd heard this somewhere before. When they were both trapped in the facility, while Chell was running the tests under Her supervision. A shiver ran through his circuits. His eyes widened behind his glasses.

"Reanimating the dead."

He shot up, previous paralysis temporarily forgotten, and ran to the back door, throwing it open and rushing to the apple tree.

The grave was sunken in, smooth white headstone slanted at an odd angle.

"No, no, no…" he spun back to the house, hearing Her voice still emanating from the radio.

"I'll tell her you said hello… not that she'll remember you. Don't worry about her; she's safe. I've given her _eternal life._ What did you give her? _Cancer_. Really, when you think about it, she's so much better off."

The feed died.

Wheatley stood dumbfounded, half slumped against the doorframe, one hand woven through his hair. It had happened while he slept; three months, she was without him, unprotected, and at some point in those months, She took Chell away from him. She took Chell and now she was back _there_ for an eternity. _This was not happening_.

There was a knot in his chest, and the empty feeling had returned. She was _gone_. She was _gone_ and being tortured back in that Hell. He collapsed on the couch, shuddering burying his face in his hands.

No matter how much he pushed his programming, checking and double checking himself, making sure he wasn't coming to the wrong conclusion, as he so often did, there was only one option.

The thought made his chest hurt. This whole situation made him hurt. He didn't want to believe that it was actually happening, that _She_ had taken his Chell and done God knows what with her. After seeing her so sick for so many months, her burial had brought one comforting notion: that nothing could ever hurt her again. She was immortalized in his memory and no new catastrophes could fall upon her and hurt her. But he'd been _wrong_. Aperture had fallen upon her, again, and she was in danger and he was so far away. He couldn't do anything.

From the house, at least.

Wheatley stood from the couch and moved to her closet, fingers brushing the doorknob. He hadn't opened the closet since she'd died. He hadn't touched the trunk they'd collected memories in. A part of him wanted to turn around and forget that her closet existed, but he knew better. He knew he had to do this. He turned the knob and peeked into the tiny storage room, feeling a familiar ache in his chest.

He stooped down and grabbed the two white, porcelain-like boots, retreating immediately to the couch and removing his shoes, rolling up the legs of his pants. He slid the first boot on and clicked the locking mechanism, hearing the hiss as the prongs at the top of the boot clamped down on his leg, biting into the synthetic skin. He hissed in pain and clawed at the prongs as they sunk right through the skin. It burned, and he was sure that this wasn't supposed to happen.

His mind traveled back to Chell, as it always inevitably did, and the way her legs below the knee were not to be touched for the longest time before she decided to show him. He recalled the tiny white scars on her legs, set in the exact same pattern that the prongs had torn his skin. He bit back the pain and slid the second boot on.

He was going to find her.


	2. The Nightmare

He retraced his steps from all those years ago; his grief-driven trek to Hell's gates and back. The ground felt foreign under the shell of the long fall boots, but there was no mistaking the path. The looming sense of dread alone was enough to reassure him that he was going in the right direction. Last time he'd come this way, he'd had a part of her with him, reassurance that no matter what happened in that place, everything would be okay.

This time, she was there, but the promise was gone.

The shed showed up as a blot on the horizon, at first. He glanced up at the sky and saw the brilliant fire of the sunset in the west, juxtaposed by the rolling storm clouds in the east. Everything was driving him to the shed, no matter how much he didn't want to go in there. Years and years ago, he'd promised himself – and her – that he'd never go back. Then, it was mostly a promise to her, a reassurance that he'd never leave her for the mild comfort, the mind-numbing familiarity of that poison place.

But now, his mind traveled back to his days of employment; how another android core had all but cornered him in the staff room and had been going on and on about how he was going to run the company, one day. A load of bollocks, Wheatley had thought, and had peeked around the bear of a man to the bustling hall outside. No one paid them any mind. No one ever paid the cores any mind.

"Yeah, you'll make a great boss, mate, I'm sure, but I have to go, really. I promised Nancy I'd get her those files by lunch, and well… that was fifteen minutes ago. Thanks, by the way."

The core had clapped him on the back, making him drop and scatter the papers he held in his hands.

"Don' mention it, bud. That's what promises are fer, ain't they? Fer breaking!" And with a tip of his hat, the man left him to clean up the mess and take the reprimand from Nancy.

_That's what promises are for. For breaking. _

The door to the shed was closed, but it opened with little effort. _She_ was obviously busy with other things, like Chell.

Just the thought infuriated him. From what she'd told him, GLaDOS had given up; She'd let Chell go. But for what? To wait until she died and drag her back?

Wheatley peered over the edge of the pit, the unpleasant hollow in his chest returning. The shed was unchanged from the day she'd died. The fading sunlight didn't provide much assistance in determining the length of the drop; the vertical tunnel seemed to descend into the bowels of oblivion.

There was a crack of thunder in the distance and he glanced over his shoulder to see the dark rainclouds again. With the rain and the night pushing him farther, and Chell's presence pulling him, he closed his eyes and took a step forward. Doing this, going back for Chell, felt right. He hoped that when he found her, she could forgive him for breaking his promise.

He felt his foot leave the solid ground of the surface and then a sickening drop that left his insides somewhere still lingering around the door. He plummeted down, rocketing towards the ground – he _supposed_ there was ground at the bottom. Not always a given, really – at a speed that impaired his hearing and made it difficult for him to open his eyes.

So he didn't. He screwed his face up, straightened his body like a board and braced for impact. He'd seen hundreds of test subjects take huge falls. Perhaps not as huge as this, but with the boots, they almost always landed safely. All he had to do was wait for the ground to meet him and not pass out upon impact. Those were the two rules the Testing Associates gave the subjects. Of course, Wheatley was an android, and the latter wasn't an option.

He almost wished it were.

The ground met him violently, sending a shock up his legs and through his torso that made him cry out and temporarily sent his equilibrium off balance. A split second after his feet found solid ground, his knees buckled underneath him and he crumpled in a pitiful heap to the cold concrete floor. He rolled onto his back to witness the small dot of light be swallowed by the darkness inside Aperture as the heavy metal door swung shut miles above.

That was it. He was in. It was a dismal thought, though he knew he should have been happy that he'd at least made it this far alive. After a moment to regain his bearings, he picked himself up from the floor and took in his surroundings. It was dark; there was very little light, and what _was_ there was an eerie red glow that seemed to emanate from the walls. With a blink, Wheatley turned his flashlight on and moved down the hallway. God, he forgot how he'd hated it here. The place truly was poison, Chell had been right about that.

He moved carefully through the facility; after the noise of his landing down the main elevator shaft, he didn't want to attract Her attention any more than necessary. The halls were dark and quiet and _cold_. That's what bothered him the most, was that they were cold. Not so much in the sense of temperature – though it was rather chilly in the hallway – but in the sense of that unnerving feeling he got in the pit of his circuitry. _Foreboding_. After being so long up on the surface, he'd forgotten what Aperture felt like. He didn't want to be here. God, this was the last place he wanted to be. But he had to find her. She was here, he knew she was.

His footsteps stopped as a thought struck him.

How in the name of _Science_ was he going to find her? Sure, he'd been gone for a while, but he certainly remembered the absurd scale of the place. He'd felt it; he'd _been_ it, the sprawling mass of Aperture. What did he plan to do, look behind every door and down every hallway until he found her?

He scolded himself for not planning things through and stared at the tips of the boots, trying to _think_ of something. He remembered following Chell through the chambers, watching over her from behind panels, undetected, as _She_ couldn't feel the rails like She could feel the rest of the place. He supposed he could do that. He'd used his management rail at the time, to know where she was. He looked to the ceiling.

No rail.

He let out an exasperated huff, even that small sound echoing through the eerily silent hallway. He'd hated that bloody rail in all parts of the facility when he'd been bound to it. Lots of help it was now. However, that wasn't the _only_ option. The rail was just another part of the facility; if he could find a working port, he could get all the information he needed.

The halls were long and winding and he knew after about ten minutes that he wouldn't be able to find where he came in. It was a maze, the inner workings of the facility, the walls reflecting the fluorescent white of his flashlight, an unsteady light due to his nervousness, eyes darting from wall to wall, trying to spot everything at once to make sure no wayward piece of machinery was going to jump out at him.

He almost missed it, the port. It was set in a small alcove on the wall, just large enough for a person to fit. Wheatley backed into the recess and reached behind his head, awkwardly guiding the stationary lead into the quick access port on the back of his neck.

He felt it open him, accessing all his information. He felt it scan and investigate every line of his code. It put a lock on his system. He froze, more out of obligation under the system arrest than out of shock, though there was plenty of that as well, his limbs snapping to his sides and unable to move any more than his fingers. There was a small, cool, feminine voice in his head, entirely foreign and very fluid. "Attention unidentified Artificial Intelligence: You are not registered in Aperture Science's Artificial Intelligence database, and thus are not welcomed in the facility. Please stand by while a Testing Associate, Certified Stalemate Resolution Associate, Scientist or other personnel comes to retrieve you and deposit you in the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator."

Wheatley laughed nervously. It was Aperture's Spyware. He recalled the mass hysteria in the facility when that other Science company developed mobile bots. The higher-ups had thrown such a fit about the rival coming in undetected and siphoning off important information from the database, and the solution had been a security system that sprawled over the entire knowledge of Aperture's goings-on. It was dubbed 'Spyware' and launched into the system, much to_ Her_ dismay. "Honestly, I don't know what you're talking about. I am, in fact, a registered core. Can you, ah, release me back into the system?" he asked.

"Negative. Detected Artificial Intelligence is not recognized." The program responded.

"Oh, come on, miss, I _am_ registered! It's me, Wheatley! You – you remember me, don't you? I mean, sure, it's been a long time, but…"

"Core name 'Wheatley' not identified."

The android sighed. "Fine. Uhm… Intelligence Dampening Core, here. Hello." He said, his voice perhaps a bit too cordial, almost strained in the formality . A dry buzz was all that remained of the Spyware as it searched Aperture's database for any trace of 'Intelligence Dampening Core.' He'd hated that name, he'd hated it since he'd worked in Aperture, and had been grateful that the scientists never took the time to use it fully. Often times, they just called him ID Core. Some of them had even taken to calling him Wheatley, after he had corrected them so many times. It was easier to ignore, that way, to pretend like he could be useful in the facility. The thought still stung, and he occasionally wondered how they could have been so cruel as to create a being who was _designed_ to be a mess, inadequate, _wrong_ all the time. But he wasn't ashamed of his programming anymore, not since years and years ago. Not since starting his life on the surface.

She had fixed him in more ways than one; he remembered the earlier days, months even, where he groped for her approval and forgiveness without truly realizing that it wasn't something he had to _earn,_ but _preserve_. He remembered berating himself so heavily for the smallest mistakes, always trying to do better, always expecting her to turn around one day and hit the kill switch because _she knew now_ and who would want to put up with him? Especially her, who had endured so much for him – _because_ of him – already.

But then she'd welcomed him into her home, her life, to stay and be taught and protected and comforted. A lot changed between them in a short period of time – he no longer groveled for acceptance, the tension between them all but disappeared, and things suddenly became a lot easier – as the stress of constantly being in her company lessened, so did the frequency of his mistakes.

She'd told him that his programming, the crippling ball-and-chain programming the engineers had gifted him with since activation, didn't matter on the surface, that it didn't matter to her if he made mistakes or bad decisions, because that's what being a real person was about. She'd smiled and told him, that was it. That was what being on the surface, free of Aperture, meant. _Being a person_, not just some machine that was expendable or easily modified to suit their needs.

It had helped, a bit. He found himself worrying less and less, repeating her words to himself in times of doubt. They did things together, small things that he knew would end in disaster because that's what happened with him. When they didn't, he wasn't only surprised, but ecstatic, and he could see that she was, too – for him.

This continued for years, and he gradually became so much more comfortable around himself, to the point where she came home one day, and greeted him.

And he'd corrected her. _"Intelligence Dampening Core."_ Perhaps he hadn't meant to say it aloud – he'd been home alone for some time and had been thinking about it all morning. It had really just… _tumbled_ out, at that point. She'd stopped mid stride and sat with him, concern etched into her features, and all he could do was laugh. She'd mistaken it for pessimism on his part, dwelling on things that they both knew were bound to put him in a mood, but the fact of the matter was, this was a _milestone_ for him. The first time he'd said his real name out loud in centuries. He'd hid from that name for so long, and there it was, out in the open, acknowledged for the first time almost since activation. It didn't hurt, it didn't make him any less of the person he'd become, and it showed in the wide grin that erupted over his face. She looked at him, confused at first, having fully expected another emotional hurdle for them to stumble over, but she saw it too, after a moment, and then everything was _perfect_.

Another dry buzz cut his daydream short; the Spyware was back, having found the correct information-

"Core name 'Intelligence Dampening Core' not recognized."

- or lack thereof.

Wheatley's circuits froze. Not recognized? Of course he was recognized! He'd worked in Aperture for centuries, why wasn't he recognized? He took a deep breath, slowing his fans, and tried not to panic. "Okay. Uhm… Do you… do you have access to employment records? Because, I've _got_ to be there. I've worked here forever. Well, obviously not forever, because I've been a bit A-wall for uhm, fifty years. But, before that, _quite_ a long time."

"Please state area of employment."

"Well, Intelligence Dampening Core. That would be number one, but since you obviously don't have anything under that category… I was a Testing Associate! Anything there?"

"Negative. Please stand by while a Testing Associate, Certified Stalemate Resolution Associate, Scientist or other personnel comes to retrieve you and deposit you in the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator."

"No, no, no, wait! I, uhm… I had other jobs, too! As it happens, I worked in accounting, for a – well, for about two weeks, actually. Hmm… what about… oh, what about being the bloke who works with all the, uhm, the potential customers? What'd they call it, a – a project engineer, I think. Did that for a while, quite a while, actually."

"Negative. Please state _last employment position_."

"Oh! Oh, easy. I was the relaxation annex attendant. Ha!" The nervousness began to ebb. No, he wasn't exactly worried about being tossed, because honestly there was no one left to do the tossing. But now that they could get on with it, he felt better. "Should've said that first." He chuckled. "All because I was _doing_ it wrong!"

"Information redacted."

Wheatley blanched. "Wh-what? No, No, I'm the core who worked in the relaxation annex; I took care of all the humans! Well, I mean, before they all snuffed it. Erm – system error, of course."

"Please stand by as I attempt to access the redacted information."

"No, miss, we don't have time for that. I'm looking for a lady, you might've seen her around here. About five-six, dark brown hair, was probably dead when they brought her in. Probably doing a lot of jumping, bout now. Have you seen her?"

There was no answer, and Wheatley became impatient, with no information and his arms still locked to his sides. "Look," he grunted, trying to move. "There's no Testing Associate, there's no scientists, there's no anyone. It's just you, me, my lady, and the madwoman running the place. I'd really like to get her and get out, if that's okay with you."

"Negative. Action is not approved by management."

"Then what _is_?"

"As an unidentified core, approved actions are as follows: One, being deposited in the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator. End of list."

Wheatley thrummed his fingers against his thigh. This was getting bothersome. "Okay. What do I have to do to get out of systems lock? Show you my credentials? God, I don't even know if I _have_ credentials. Look. The plastic bit that covers the port on my neck – it's got the Aperture logo on it, I'm told. Is there anyway you can use that? I – I _am_ an Aperture core."

"Redacted information has been stored in the main Chassis. I do not have access to the redacted information."

So that's why, he realized with a sinking feeling that settled itself somewhere in his chest. _She_ erased him from the system. The thought brought a frown to his lips. Aperture didn't recognize him; everyone who'd ever known him had been dead for eons. She'd erased him completely. It was a bit of a dismal thought, and he found himself rather disheartened by it. He'd never really existed in any real society. Aperture was the one place he had, before venturing out with Chell to the post-apocalyptic surface, where it didn't matter who they were. They were the last people on Earth. Aperture was the only place that had ever held any documentation of his existence and now it was gone. The notion was unsettling, at the very least, that he could die down in Aperture and no one would ever know he existed. He'd be forgotten, for good. He swallowed hard, trying to ebb the sense of dread that had washed over him at the thought.

"Okay. So what, there's one measly robot running around, you don't know who he is… from what I've heard, when there were still people on the surface, there were literally _billions_ of them, could never keep track of them all. No one tried. No one said, 'Man, I have _got_ to catalog and keep track of every human up here.' So, can't we just…No?" The Spyware had disappeared, receding into the depths of Aperture's data banks. "Look. I just want to know where my lady is. That's all. Not harmful information, is it? It's not like I could use it to do anything other than, uh, _find my lady_, actually. That's all I'm asking."

He waited for a reply, and there was a long stretch of silence that ran shivers through his system. He hated the silence up there bad enough and always tried to keep some noise going in the house when he was awake, whether it be the white noise of the fuzzy stations on a telly he'd found, or his own chatter. But down here, it was nothing less than the song of death itself.

He flexed his hands, trying to move constantly. His flashlight had shut off when he'd been put under systems arrest, it was pitch black and he wanted something more than the steady humming of the facility to reassure him that he was still alive because, considering where he was, how vulnerable he was, that could all change very quickly. He found himself humming the soft tune that he remembered from this place, the one that the turrets sang.

Then the system came back.

"The 'Intelligence Dampening Core' has been granted access to Aperture Science databanks. What is it that you wish to know?" the Spyware asked. The second it finished its sentence, he could feel the lock release, and he moved about, testing his joints, making sure nothing was still accidentally locked. It wasn't unusual for a full-body system lock to linger after it was released.

"I want to know where my lady is!" he asserted. "Her name is Chell, she's probably in testing right now, are there any active test subjects?

"Subject 'Chell' is currently not in testing. Subject 'Chell' can be found... here." The system said, and poured a set of directions into Wheatley's temporary downloads; the directions would automatically be filtered into his recycling bin after forty eight hours, but he wouldn't need them that long. He scanned them as they were downloaded; they didn't look complicated. Simple left-right turns and all, up this staircase, down that one. He was notified by the system when the download was finished.

"Haha, look, thanks miss, you won't regret it, I promise!" he bubbled, disconnecting from the port. "Oh ho, this is brilliant!" He thought she'd be in the testing track. That's what GLaDOS did, She tested. Moreover, She tested _Chell_. But to think that she'd been so _close_.

His boots clicked on the concrete blocks in a quick, steady rhythm as he bounded down the hallways, skidding around corners so that his feet nearly flew out from underneath him – traction was one thing these boots were _not_ good for, he decided, making his strides more measured. Down one hall, then another, constantly repeating in his head the directions that the Spyware had given him. Second corridor on the left, then take an _immediate_ right.

His long falls slid underneath him as he came to a halt, faced with a blank wall, a dead end. His fans stopped short in shock as he staggered to a halt.

He backed out of the hallway, retracing his steps. Had he made a wrong turn? Oh, God, where was he? He stared blankly at the dead end, unsure of what to do next. For all he knew the wrong turn could have been miles back! Maybe he could find another port? A quick glance around the hall showed no sign of help, port or otherwise. He hummed in slight irritation. Would it have _killed_ them to stick a map or two on the walls?

There was a mechanical hiss, startling him. He looked back to the dead-end hallway to see it suddenly sealed off by translucent teal paneling. His hard-drive dropped to around his knees. It was _Her_. He gasped and took off like a shot in the other direction.

How was he dumb enough to think that She didn't know he was here? He remembered the omnipotent power he'd possessed while in the Chassis. He could feel her every step, her every shift of weight. _Surely_ She could feel him, clunking around back here. He cursed under his breath and turned the corridor, which was quickly blocked off by more panels. He spun around and ran. It wasn't worth much, but maybe he could be quick enough to –

Nope. Another corridor, blocked off. She stopped him at every turn. He growled and threw his head back. "Having a little laugh, lady? Really, what's the point in this?"

He kicked the wall and sprinted on, the long fall boots making it surprisingly easy to control his lengthy strides. One, two, three more corridors, blocked off, continuing the irritating pattern until he came to the last corridor on the hall – the only one that wasn't yet blocked. His jaw set and a frown creasing his brow, he backed up a few paces, sprinting towards the adjacent hall and making a jump for it.


	3. The Killswitch

He landed on the cold, concrete floor with a thud, the paneling snapping shut at his heels, momentarily catching the springs of the boots and dragging him upwards. He managed to kick himself free and hit the floor, chest first. He stood, shaking off the impact and observing his surroundings.

Now what? The hallway was almost completely barren. A single door adjourned the wall at the opposite end of the strip.

Some part of him screamed that it was a trap. She was good at those. But what other option did he have? He had to find Chell, and sitting in the lonely hallway and twiddling his thumbs wouldn't help. He moved towards it, bracing himself for the worst.

The handle turned easily and the door swung open at his touch and he nearly plowed the figure over as he tried to dart into the next hallway without being riddled with turret bullets. He reared back, flailing his arms to try to find something to support him in his stupor. A part of him couldn't believe it, a part of him didn't _want_ to, knowing that the moment he did he would wake up.

"Ch-Chell?" he breathed, awestruck. He hovered over her for a moment of disbelief before he pitched forward and wrapped his arms around her, the rough orange material of the Aperture Standard Test Subject Jumpsuit rustling as he ducked his head into her shoulder and babbled whatever came to mind. A small part of him felt a stinging dread that she was back in those garments, a token of Hell. But after so many years, he wasn't concerned with making sense, he was just so happy to have her back. He ran his fingers through her hair, which was pulled back into a sleek ponytail. He moved back and cradled her chin, tilting her head up towards him. "Don't you worry, luv. We're going to get out of here, soon as we can." He moved one hand to the base of her skull. "I promise." He said.

His fingers brushed the back of her neck.

He froze.

He thought maybe he could see it in her, the subtle clues. The way her eyes were

a little too bright, her skin a little too cold…

Chell remained stoic and silent as he'd ever seen her in the facility, but that's not what he was concerned about. The pad of his thumb traced a hair line seam on the back of her neck, a geometric indentation that separated a small patch of skin from the rest of her body.

He looked her square in the eye, confused, before moving slowly around her, never taking his hand away, hunching over behind her and raking her hair to the side. There was a sharp intake of breath as his fingers brushed her neck. She tensed.

Something inside of him hurt, terribly. On the back of her neck was a small flap bearing a familiar symbol: a hybrid of a commonplace power button and the Aperture Science logo. The very same symbol he shared on his protective covering.

"Oh, Chell…" he breathed. "What's She done to you?" he moved to grab her hand but she refused, taking a step forwards and turning to face him. He looked at her, and saw that she was very nearly expressionless, save for maybe the slightest trace of vexation. Her gaze was hard and void of any recollection, no hint whatsoever that she recognized him. His eyes widened behind his glasses, his hands fell to his sides, and there was an electrical spark in his chest. "Chell…?" he reached halfheartedly forward again and she pulled back, glaring daggers at him before taking one more step and turning on her heel, taking off down the empty hallway. The panels on the opposite end of the hall were lowered for her, and remained down.

Wheatley didn't move.

He watched as she disappeared into the darkness of the hallway; God knows where she was going. All that mattered was that it was _away from him_. She'd _run_ _away from him. _It was painful, to think about, but he had to keep in mind that she wasn't herself. He knew that if she were, she'd have stayed, she'd have held him, she'd have…

He clapped a hand over his mouth, feeling as sick as an android could. He was literally trapped in the bowels of Hell without her. He needed her to get out, he knew he did. He hadn't anticipated her turning away from him like that. It had never occurred to him that she might not _want_ to leave Aperture. He remembered his earlier days of activation, after She had killed everyone, leaving him the sole attendant of the Annex. It'd filled him with pride, at first, to think that She, as completely bonkers as She was, trusted him with the ten thousand humans stored in Cryo. It hadn't crossed his mind that She _didn't even know he was there_. And the first time the thought presented itself to him, 'get out,' he'd thought he was going corrupt for sure. The same probably went for Chell. She probably thought everything was tip top. She'd been programmed for testing, why would she want to leave now?

He might not be able to convince her.

He jerked away from the wall, cringing as the speakers sputtered to life in the hallway. The noise was demonic, at first, but smoothed out enough so that he could hear the cold voice as clear as day.

"I know what you're thinking." She said over the intercom, and maybe he wished that the speaker was still screeching back to life. "I felt the same way. Too bad I had to _rip_ her from her humanity, but because you stuck her under nine feet of dirt for the last thirty years, her body was decomposed far past testing capabilities. If it weren't for her time here, all the dangerous, untested chemicals you exposed her to, there might not have been anything left for me to work with, and even then I doubted what was left of her muscles would have been sufficient to hold her upright. So really, it was the only option. But think of the Scientific achievement reached, here. It doesn't need or want. It just tests."

He straightened out, standing at his full height.

"It's funny, actually. Even if you'd brought her to me the moment she died, there would have been no saving her. She was so full of tumors, I wouldn't have been able to cut them all out without removing a lung or two. It was simple though, and painless. For me. All I had to do was get her brain going again, and that was probably the easiest part of the whole procedure. Simple electric shock manipulation. The rest of it was brain mapping and storing her electronic consciousness in a body, which was all possible thanks to those two testing bots you found while _desecrating_ my body and _destroying_ my facility. Because of them, I was able to re-create the android body that _your_ consciousness is wasting. With a few modifications, of course." There was a pause. "So, really, she should be thanking _you_, for this. For all of it. Every step of the way has been your fault. _You_ killed her. _You_ put her in my reach – don't pretend you didn't know how big the facility really is. I exist far past that pathetic city you two scrounged around in. When you buried her, all I had to do was reach out and pluck her from that miserable hole you put her in. _You_ activated the bots, and _you're_ the one she should be thanking. Not me."

There was a soft chuckle over the speakers followed by an even softer sound.

"Oh," she breathed, as if it were a surprise, "it looks like she doesn't forgive you. You did _murder her, _after all. I'm surprised you came back, after doing what you did, to the human who saved your life. Really, though: don't worry about her." Wheatley stood straight, looking away from the speaker, trying to ignore Her. She made it difficult. "Worry about yourself." His every muscle tensed. "I haven't forgotten what you did to my facility, what you did to _me_. You think her not remembering you hurts? You think that's your punishment? _That's only the beginning_."

There was a slam behind him, and the sickening crunch of metal that made him wish he could vomit – the human equivalent of hearing someone be ripped apart behind you, hearing the crack of the bones as they break and the wet, heavy sound of tearing flesh. Bits of the door lock fell at his feet as She violently connected the two walls behind him, barring his exit, and he kicked them away hurriedly, out of sight before he took off again, Chell's old boots scraping at the dry floor and producing the most horrendous duet of noise he'd ever heard.

It was a run for his life, when you really boiled it down. Of course, other things were thrown in there. Find Chell, rescue her, help her remember, things of the sort. But at the moment, his main goal was to _stay alive_.

He never looked back, he never stopped to see what was happening, but he could hear it. The walls slamming together violently, the pop of the lights as they were crushed between massive slabs of seemingly harmless concrete. More crunching metal.

He kept running. He had to find someplace safe. He _had_ to, because both of their lives depended on it.

"How do you think it will feel, after I kill you, reliving that moment over and over for the rest of eternity, when you realize that she _hates_ you because you _killed_ her? It was all your fault!" She bellowed over the deafening noise.

Wheatley knew that not all of the facility was under Her control. Most of it wasn't, to be honest. Sure, She could feel you almost anywhere you went, but the majority of Aperture was built with a sturdy material of some sort, where there wasn't a panel in sight. Those were almost exclusively in the test chambers.

He tripped over his own feet, stumbling and nearly pitching forward to the ground, thankful that he was able to catch himself before hitting the pavement, picking himself back up and stumbling on, trying to not stop for anything, especially his own deplorable motor skills.

"I really don't know where you think you're going. You don't even know, do you? You've failed at every single thing you've ever done. What makes you think this thing will turn out any different? You're not an engineer, you're not a scientist; you're a _mistake_, a corrupt core that the Scientists spent too much money on to turn into scrap metal."

He didn't stop, hardly even heard her. There were only two things on his mind: that empty, distant look Chell had given him before she took off, and finding her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he'd find her, because he always did. Maybe it _had_ been coincidence, that they'd found each other so many times. At the Annex, after he'd been crushed half to death, and maybe if it had stopped there, he wouldn't have counted it for much. But he'd seen the Earth from so very far above, he'd _seen_ how positively massive the planet was, how much water covered its surface, how much land there was, and he'd watched it all rush up to meet at a million miles an hour as he hurtled to the ground. He'd hit the dirt in a nearly fatal impact and he'd laid there, so certain that he was going to die, so certain that he was alone with no one to help him, but there she was and in the most impossible of odds, she'd found him.

It couldn't _just_ be coincidence, he thought that night. Now with all the two hundred billion square miles of Earth he could have landed on, most of them water that would have shorted every circuit in his body immediately upon impact. Not when he'd landed so perfectly in range, not when she decided to investigate the noise and the heat produced by his crash. The odds didn't allow it.

He _knew_ beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would find her, because that's just how things worked out.

His ankles interlocked, snapping him out of his thoughts as he pitched forward, unable to catch himself in his surprise, and he hit the ground hard, limbs sprawled out around him, facedown on the floor.

There was a terrifying bang at his feet and he cringed, letting out a terrified yelp, unable to stop the next set of paneled concrete from slamming together, crushing him. He screwed his eyes shut and waited.

He knew he'd find her; he always found her. He just wished it wouldn't be in Android Hell.


	4. The Platform

The debris caused by the concrete collision settled, leaving him in a cloud of dust on the floor. As things came to a rest, the sound of his hard-drive and fans whirring in overtime became substantially louder, prominent as their noise filled the hallway, a reassurance that he was still alive for the moment..

No fatal blow came.

The walls remained mercifully stationary. His limbs relaxed and he looked up to the lone flickering light bulb that was mounted into the ceiling. Behind him, the smashed panels were coming apart again, reverting into their snake-in-the-grass position and looking impeccably like walls again. He could barely hear Her voice, and maybe that was all the worse, low and threatening as it was, dripping with poison and pure _hate_.

"Where did you go?" She asked softly, "I _know_ you're there. I can _feel_ you."

Wheatley scrambled to his feet and took slow steps away from the paneled hallway, staring dumbfoundedly at how disturbingly _close_ he'd come to being crushed. He turned, walking quickly through the hall, away from Her part of the facility. He was in the research wing, he recognized. He'd spent a great deal of his employment here, rushing between offices so the Scientists could make adjustments to his programming or run calibration tests. He'd been released as the ID Core after his stay in the department, but had found himself back, under strict supervision, after his third and final run attached to Her Chassis.

"Come back! Did you know you're going the wrong way? Chell isn't down that hall. You'll never find her like that."

This was where he'd been constructed. He'd once looked upon this hall with warmth, as one of the only places where he had been safe from the Scientists, and even somewhat appreciated – the engineers had been ecstatic when they'd turned him on, a working android core, and it showed. They'd been kind, and were perhaps the only people who had.

And even now, the hall still provided him with a sense of security, the promise that he was safe here. All for a different, much more sinister reason, but a reason nonetheless. The hall was probably the only thing about Aperture that appealed to him anymore, and even that affection was dodgy. The once-prestigious facility had boasted state-of-the-art Science and intelligent co-workers, clean white walls and the smell of progress – back then, it had been an attractive place to call home. Even after _She_ was killed, and the white walls started crumbling around him and his management rail, the scientists long-dead, he'd been able to revel in the fact that it was all his. Even if he didn't have access to all of it, every grass covered panel and chunk of decaying drywall had been his, when back then all he'd had to his name was a pair of glasses, a uniform and a docking station.

The dilapidated building had been a jewel because he'd been kept in the dark all his life, trapped miles and miles under ground, never once permitted to see real sunlight, feel the grass or smell the dirt. Sterilized Science was all he'd ever known and, while the research wing offered that strange sense of security rarely found in Aperture, not even his fondest memories of time spent there could hold a candle to what was _outside_.

His fingers dragged across the cinderblock walls as he walked distractedly, wondering over how much he'd changed since living on the surface. He'd once thought he'd belonged to the facility, was an integral part of it, that _it_ was an integral part of _him_. Even as an escape plan had brewed in his mind, he couldn't imagine how he would survive out of Aperture. A tiny part of him incessantly suggested that he wouldn't. The centuries alone had conjured sick daydreams, nervous visions of his own demise brought by nature, something he was not built for. In the first weeks of his new life, the old prophecies suddenly flooded back to him, at the most inopportune times – mostly when he was alone – and he longed for the climate-controlled safety of Aperture's confines. But she'd taught him that not all the world was out to get him, and with that one waterfall came the ability to tell himself that he'd be okay, that they'd make it work and that, with Chell, he stood a fighting chance.

Slowly, the surface had become his home, one that was more comfortable and much more accepting than Aperture could have ever been. He began to see why Chell had coveted her freedom so much, a whole world just for them. Much more manageable than having an entire universe to yourself.

It'd taken him a long time to accept what had happened, to make amends with himself and start over, _really_ start over, like she'd wanted them to, but after so many years, so many nights together and so much familiarity between them, he'd had no choice but to accept the obvious answer: she was his other half, and he was hers. They cared for and protected each other, and the first night they'd spend, laying in the wheat and laughing beneath the stars, her head on his shoulder and their fingers intertwined, he knew that the past was just that – _over_ – and that it couldn't hurt either of them again, because the surface was where he belonged, more than he'd ever belonged at Aperture, and he was never going back.

He scoffed at the idea, now, his hand dropping back to his side.

"Where are you going?" She asked, Her voice small. He could barely hear Her, and was more than happy to tune Her out.

Wheatley looked to the ceiling, and a smile crept onto his lips at the sight of the thin strip of metal that was bolted into the tiles above his head: his old management rail. He stood directly below it and kept his head tilted upwards, following its every curve and relishing the familiar path. So much had been haphazard and dangerous in these last few hours, and it felt nice to be able to count on something in the facility to stay the same after so many years. His feet found a comfortable rhythm and he turned every so often with the beginnings of a plan in mind. The scientists had stuck him on a platform when he'd been taken from the GLaDOS project indefinitely; it could be anywhere in the facility. Last he'd seen it was in the Neurotoxin Production office, and God knew where it was now. He wouldn't find his platform, but there was still the chance he could find the platform docking station.

All rails inevitably led back to the station, because all rails originated from it. It was a complex, spider web of a system that had taken the original personality spheres years and years to memorize, and they had often gotten so lost trying to get from point A to point B that no one ever saw them again. After the company had accumulated a considerable half a million dollars in lost spheres, the management rail was upgraded. No longer was it a simple piece of track, but an advanced machine with information of all sorts, maps of the facility, a communication unit, and an abundance of other features that Wheatley had either never had the chance to use or simply hadn't been allowed to.

His management rail had been a platform, one of the first of its kind, fashioned like a chair. A thick metal bar protruded vertically from the center of the back of the chair, with a smaller strip of metal protruding horizontally from that. It served as the connector port for any android sitting on the platform, allowing the core to control the movement of the chair, to zip through the facility and access all the information stored by the rail itself.

The older models, the personality spheres, had been positioned on sturdier mechanical arms that hung from the rail in much the same manner that the platforms did, but without the chair. The spheres were able to extend their albeit limited reach by leaning forward, and were able to keep out of the way of people on the ground by pulling up. It was, in truth, a very useful feature of the sphere's rail system, because with the platform, one wrong move, say to move your absurdly long legs out of the way of people's heads, resulted in a disconnection and then there was a whole fiasco in the middle of the lobby where they had to come and plug you back in because you nearly electrocuted yourself, and it was just a big mess.

But the platforms were good, for his purposes. First and foremost, it kept him from being a dangling mess of limbs, not to mention the fact that on a sphere's port, his feet would probably drag on the ground. He remembered Aperture's first and only "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day", where he'd corralled twenty-odd five to twelve year olds and led them on a tour of the least dangerous places in the facility – the short term cryogenic pods, the lobby; harmless little places like that. The secondary chaperone already had his arms full when one of the littler children got tired and asked to be carried. The man had looked up at Wheatley pleadingly and he'd smiled awkwardly and taken one of the little girls from his arms, laying her in his lap and watching her as she slept peacefully. The other kids had glanced fearfully at him, unsure of how to act upon being presented with something that looked like a man, but was in fact a piece of machinery. When the little girl stirred and woke up, he'd frozen, grinning lopsidedly down at her and given a little wave, fully expecting her to scream and try to get away, possibly getting hurt in the process. But as her eyes focused on him and she realized who he was – or more precisely, _what_ he was – she just grinned right back and snatched the glasses off of his face.

Just that thought made him smile. That little girl in the overalls and the junior scientist's lab coat had made his day all the better, and he'd bet everything he had that he'd never forget her. He didn't even know who she was, really, but he knew he'd never forget her.

He placed a hand on the doorframe of the room he'd come to, looking down from the management rail and coming out of his reverie. His smile widened. _This was the room_. Perhaps it was pre-programming, perhaps it was just the inevitability of returning to the center of the spider web, but this was the core docking station.

He climbed awkwardly up the unsteady scaffolding to the first available platform, swinging his legs over the arm of the chair, dropping down into the seat and sitting stock still, clutching at the arms of the chair as it teetered in the rail from the sudden weight. He settled, feeling the wires press uncomfortably against his neck. He bowed his head and reached for them, popping his protective plate open and guiding them carefully into the back of his neck. He felt the reassuring click and a comfortable, familiar pressure in his port.

The chair sprang to life, emitting a low, lovely hum that seemed to vibrate through his body. He smiled and rested his head on the back of the chair as the heat spread through him from his very core to the farthest reaches of his limbs – the first proper charge he'd received in more than half a century. It certainly felt wonderful, like the first true rest he'd gotten since being evicted from the facility. Still, at the edges of his mind there was a stinging, nagging fear that was most unwelcomed in these few precious moments of safety. He knew that the rail connected him to the facility, and that was dangerous.

He reassured himself that he was relatively safe. Certainly safer than he'd been in that hallway. He remembered how, during their escape, GLaDOS had pulled him from the system, breaking the port in his back, and hoisted him three stories above the ground before trying to kill him. She'd tossed him to the side and everything after that was a bit fuzzy, save for the extremely close beak of a bird, pecking curiously at his face, and then his systems had come back online. The repair bay had stuck him right back on his platform, allowing him to regain the charge that had leaked from him like blood upon the nearly fatal assault.

She hadn't paid him much attention then, when he was zipping between tests, watching her, making sure his mute lady was still alive and that there was still the chance of escape. Maybe She hadn't paid much attention to the management rails before, but to be brutally honest, he hadn't stuck her in a potato then, either.

The chair stuck and sputtered at first, throwing off sparks; he ducked his head as they rained down on him and _willed_ the chair to try harder. It gave a grinding moan and he silently apologized for the strain he was putting on it, but they _really_ had to start moving.

The whole platform lurched forward, nearly throwing him off, and he figured he deserved it, only fair, he wasn't exactly treating the chair according to Aperture standards, but most Aperture standards didn't truly exist anymore, and this was a little more urgent than a casual ride around the facility.

His fingers slid across the control panel on the left arm of the chair, pulling up different menus and such through the rail. It was all a bit fuzzy, a tad out of focus, and he wished that he still had the glasses the facility had supplied him with. In his earlier days of employment on the management rail, they had given him a pair of glasses that acted as a sort of communications device. A miniature computer desktop where notices popped up, telling him where he had to be and what he had to do. Wheatley had found, after about two months, that he could never keep track of the glasses, so development had taken him in one day for an 'upgrade.' Where he'd entered the bay with better than perfect vision, he'd left that morning with poor vision and practically no depth perception, and was presented with a new pair of glasses, ones that served the dual purpose of acting as his task board and correcting his vision. He was told that he was not to loose this pair, which wasn't a difficult order to follow, since he couldn't move more than two feet without them. They'd been cracked after GLaDOS's temper tantrum in Her dilapidated chamber, and were just short of utterly destroyed after impact. He'd kept them for a few days in hopes of still being able to see, before Chell had found a suitable pair that kept his vision in focus, but the new pair had lacked the interface Aperture had given Wheatley to store all the useful information within sight, and pull up tiny windows that allowed him to view a map or a correspondence.

Without the glasses, all this information was stored in his head, and he closed his eyes, trying to visualize the map of the facility. It kept swimming in and out of his mind, contending with thoughts of the danger of what he was doing, thoughts of her, her face, the distant look of a stranger whom you'd confront on the streets.

He growled in frustration and _focused_, feeling the map push all of his other thoughts away, filling his vision. He could see the testing track and a biosignature, one giving off the electrical current unique to an Aperture Personality Android. It had to be her, and she seemed to be moving through the track fairly quickly – with no insult to her, they must have been the earlier chambers of that specific track. The chambers got more and more complicated as the test subject progressed, and despite how good he knew she was at testing, he highly doubted she'd be completing the advanced chambers in the three-seconds-flat time range.

His platform followed his instructions obediently, though occasionally taking a detour around a busted rail or closed off intersection; he never questioned it, because he knew the rail mainframe knew its way around the facility better than he did, and that was saying something, as he was almost infused with the routes and directions he'd used for so many years.

It didn't take him very long to find the right testing track. He honestly didn't have to do much, on that front. The map was labeled, showing that Chell was in test chamber nineteen on track eight – a track that had a grueling sixty two different tests. All he had to do was _want_ to go there and off they went, the mainframe guiding the platform as easily as he had once guided Chell across the catwalks.

He couldn't go in and get her, not just yet. He had to come up with a plan. Perhaps he could kill the power, like he had last time? He tested his connection to that part of the facility's system, and groaned in dismay when he learned that he was cut from it entirely. He'd forgotten: the only reason why he'd had access to that part of the facility in the first place was because She'd been dead for so long and had so much cleaning up to do. Something as frivolous to Her as complete control over the electric hadn't been on Her mind, not when She had Chell at Her disposal. Basic maintenance had been divided amongst the cores, most of which had been accidentally crushed in the middle of fixing a panel or whose metal hull or synthetic skin had been burnt and warped by a hard light bridge. Some had simply stopped working, or gone off the deep end, like many of the Task Spheres. They were all fully functional, rational cores for years before the increase of information, the expanded reach over the facility, finally got to them.

Eventually, Wheatley had been one of the few left, and by the time he'd woken Chell up, he was almost certain that he'd been the only functional core left.

Perhaps if he could time it just right, if Chell would pass by where he lay in wait, hiding behind the panels, he could just _grab_ her. It wasn't the most ceremonious of plans, but it would work as well as anything.

He got in position, exiting the rail's program to listen closely for the sound of her long fall boots. He'd wait until they got louder, closer, and he'd move the panel, reach out, grab her, and then they'd basically run. Well, not _physically_ run, of course, since he was still strapped to the chair. That and the fact that there was very little floor beneath him at the moment would make running a bit of a difficult task, rather ridiculous when you think about it… He supposed 'flee' would be a better verb there: and then they'd basically _flee_.

There was the sharp _tap-tap-tap_ of her boots on the floor paneling, snapping him from his derailed train of thought. His fans picked up in the adrenaline of the moment, his hard drive kicking up with an uncomfortable whirr as she moved closer to the wall panel he was hidden behind. Any second now, he'd slide it across and snatch her right from the chamber, and off they would go and he'd fix everything, somehow.

He pressed his back against the chair, the panels still closed securely in front of him as the explosion of gunfire suddenly echoed through the room. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw and his fists and waited for it to stop. She was _good_. _Terrifying_, but _good_. A half a century away from the testing track certainly hadn't tarnished her skills any—

There was a gasp, and a thud, and his processors stopped, ears straining to hear any further indication of what had happened. Child-like voices were heard, muffled through the panels.

"Are you still there?"

"Could you come over here?"

"Sentry mode activated."

_Sentry mode activated._ Those words meant they'd spotted her. She hadn't tipped one over; it hadn't malfunctioned and sprayed bullets haphazardly through the air. The turrets had shot at her.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the panel.

And they'd hit her.


	5. The Connection

He bit down hard on the synthetic skin of his knuckle, leaving little indentations behind, waiting for the tell tale "Sleep mode activated" or "Naptime" that told him it was _relatively_ safe for him to dart out and retrieve her.

He could also hear _Her_. "For an advanced military android, you're really disappointing. The object of the test is to _not_ get shot, in case you needed clarification. Which you didn't. Really, you can't do any better than this? Pathetic. I know _I_ didn't make any error, in your construction. It must be you."

Wheatley's breathing picked up, he bared his teeth in a grimace and moved the panel, darting into the room and leaned over, the wires in his neck straining at the unusual position. He was afraid that they were going to pop right out. Then he'd have to plug himself back in before they got out of there. He couldn't afford to waste time, not with Her on their heels, watching everything he was doing right now. Quickly, carefully, he slid his arm under the crook of her knees, the other arm supporting her back as he rushed her out of the chamber. The panels slid shut too late he had already slipped back into the inner workings. A part of him was giddy with the realization that his completely insane impulse-driven rough sketch of a plan had worked. They were nearly free. The other part of him, the part of him that was far more rational and very aware of the immediate danger they were in, was terrified out of its wits. He preferred to focus on the giddy-beyond-belief part of him. That side offered some semblance of hope for the situation.

He shifted her as they fled; she was half in his lap, and he was fighting to keep his grip on her almost nonresponsive body. He had one arm around her waist, one hand under her arm, and she was slipping fast. They zipped along the management rail and he wasn't sure if it was because of the distance between them and the chamber, the fact that he was focusing on keeping them both alive, again, or because the place had literally started coming down around them, but he could hardly hear Her screaming at them through the speakers.

There was a pounding in the back of his chest, his fans whirring into overtime to cope with the stress of the moment. He could see the management rail ahead, twisted and mangled and useless because of Her. The walls were closing in on them from both sides, forwards and backwards. They were stuffed, basically.

He didn't know what to do. He never knew what to do. He wanted Chell to come back to herself, to be able to take a split second glance around the room and know where they were and what they needed to do, because they were going to die, now.

He tried. His eyes darted frantically around the huge room, from miles and miles above the floor, if there even was one. When he looked down, all he could see was a few catwalks and a misty haze that seemed to extend the room into oblivion.

He caught something. It was a miracle, a flash of warm orange – or at the very least, brown – in the sea of blue that made the back rooms. A warm light, and possibly a savior.

He hoisted Chell up a bit more, trying to keep his grip on her as he looked down beneath his rail. There was a catwalk there. Albeit, a quickly crumpling catwalk, but a catwalk nonetheless. It led almost straight to the alcove in the wall, straight to the safe haven.

Wheatley figured that, even if his half-baked plan didn't work, they were going to die either way. At least if he tried, they might survive, they might have a _chance_.

With one thrust forward, he leapt from the edge of the chair. He closed his eyes, his processors stopping short for a fraction of a second as he felt himself disengaging from the management rail, the wires ripping from his port and the hard-drive-stopping drop. He held her against him as they plummeted at terminal speed, positioning his legs to hit at the right angle, holding her higher, closer, hoping she wouldn't be hurt in the fall. The sensation of the situation felt strangely similar to when she'd jumped with him on her back during their first escape attempt, and he focused on that feeling instead of the idea that they could very well be dead in a few short minutes – possibly _seconds_, if the jump ended badly.

His boots hit the metal, the ringing clang lost in the mayhem of the room collapsing in on itself as he pitched forward, trying to transform his stumble into a proper run. It was an awkward gait, and he frequently had to reposition Chell to keep her from slipping from his arms. The hole was literally _right there_, all they had to do was go a little farther, and they'd be safe.

The walls were nearly on top of them, with perhaps twenty five yards in between them and closing the gap fast. He already had the dreading suspicion that they weren't going to make it, but he didn't stop, he didn't slow. His legs pumped faster and his fans whirred as fast as they could without breaking. He closed the gap quickly, often tripping along the way, but it wasn't enough, he knew it wouldn't be…

The walls loomed over him as he skid to a stop, dropping violently to his knees and easing Chell into the small hole in the wall, apologizing quietly as she fell unceremoniously to the floor some four feet below the opening.

There was the crunch of metal, the sickening screech of steel being mangled by the crushing walls, everything being compacted and demolished, and he was next. He was overheating, his body telling him that the stress and exertion of the situation were going to shut him down if he weren't careful, and he knew he wouldn't make it, but Chell was safe. GLaDOS could never reach her in there, he was sure of it.

He trembled as he swallowed hard and closed his eyes, shutting out the scene around him, focusing on his own memories, memories of when they lived together miles above, her last words to him before she forgot who he was, that they'd spent nearly a quarter of a century together, that she'd loved him, once upon a time. _She_ wanted him to die, terrified and convinced that Chell had hated him, make him feel like he'd been alone since his activation nearly an eternity ago. He wouldn't give Her that satisfaction, he decided, drawing upon his memories.

A smile crept onto his lips at the thought of her, when she was alive and well and genuinely happy. He didn't care what She said. Chell hadn't hated him, he knew that, and he knew that all the bad blood between them had been reconciled years and years ago. They'd spent so long together, making one another truly, genuinely happy. The thought warmed him and made everything that much less terrible. He tried to recall the sense of safety he felt with her, the inexplicable happiness and the fact that he'd decided that, yes, he loved her as much as he could, given the circumstances.

He just wished she knew that, but she never would.

But she was safe, down there, and that's what mattered. His shoulders relaxed and he shut out the sound of the screaming metal, preferring to focus on something that made him happy, something that wasn't quite as life threatening. His breath came in strained huffs, as if his fans couldn't focus on one state of emotion at the moment, the terrified or the peaceful, but it slowed as the thoughts filled his mind, of them together, laying under the stars, next to her, when he was comfortable under their scrutiny for the first time since landing. They laid there and talked, open as the sky before them, for the first time, calm and honest, and they comforted one another about their fears and insecurities; Each other was all they had, they realized. They both knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but they had each other, and that was all they needed.

They slept together on the couch that night, Chell curled up comfortably next to him as they _both_ slept, the old lead secured in his port—

It was a sudden thought, one that interrupted his nostalgic daydream of the surface, of a Chell who remembered and loved him: that she was an android, like him and that she was off her charger and nearly unable to move for the bullet hole in her side. She was out of Her reach and with no one to help her. If he died, so did she.

The left wall hit his catwalk, the metal screeching in agony.

It jerked him out of the frightened stupor of his realization, and in an instant he was on his stomach, arms outstretched and clutching at the ledge on the inside of the opening, trying to pull himself through. He was still largely dependent on the catwalk, and he could feel it shift and break underneath him. There was a dangerous beeping from somewhere inside of him, warning him that he was over exerting himself and would soon overheat. The short reprise he'd given his systems hadn't been enough, but he disregarded it; he really couldn't have cared less at the moment because, frankly, he would much rather overheat for a little while than be crushed to death forever. Common sense, when you think about it.

His arms ached immensely. As far as upper body strength went, he was rather lacking, and keeping Chell from plummeting off the management platform had been difficult. And yet, he dragged himself forward, far enough so that when he felt the catwalk collapse underneath him, he was able to keep his balance. Unfortunately, hauling himself up also became more difficult at that point, with nothing to push back against and the offending concrete slab pressing dangerously against his side. He glanced down and saw Chell, still half passed out on the floor with a gaping hole in her abdomen, which seemed to be sparking dangerously.

He screwed his eyes shut and pushed the extra exertion, feeling his fans start and stop sporadically, hitching one leg into the opening and pulling himself up to meet it.

The wall caught him, closing his left foot in the opening to the small recess. His eyes flew open and he yelped in surprise and panicked, pulling himself as far forwards as he could, but it had him stuck. He tugged, trapped and unable to move, unable to even turn around and free himself, due to the tight confines of the opening. He screwed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. He could feel the strain that it put on his leg, bending his knee at an odd angle as it pressed further on in its quest to close off the room.

There was a metallic crunch and a sickening snap.

With half his torso out of the small tunnel and leaning precariously off the ledge into the room, Wheatley overbalanced and pitched forward, finally free of Her grip, twisting and tumbling onto his back on the floor next to Chell, panting heavily as his fans slowed to an appropriate rate. He didn't open his eyes, rather choosing to lay there and reclaim his wits.

They were safe. They were both safe, and everything was okay. He'd get her fixed and they could keep going, he would get her out. He played these thoughts over and over in his head in an attempt to ground himself before he opened his eyes and glanced at his foot. The black spring at the very bottom of his boot had been cracked in half, splintering the entire porcelain-like sole and taking with it a good chunk of the white casing.

He sat up and undid the lock, watching the needled prongs slide out of his skin with a hydraulic release. He sucked the air through his teeth as he slid the boot off. The skin was broken where the prongs had entered, the spots tender and burning like mad, but he was okay. It would heal, eventually, like it had on her. The wall had caught only the boot, and his foot was completely intact. He brought his other knee up to his chest and repeated the same cycle for the second boot, watching as the deep gashes appeared in his skin, which hung in shreds, exposing the wires and mechanics underneath. The boot was broken, completely useless.

He wanted to say he didn't care about the boots, but he _did_. They had been a part of _her_, they had been _hers_ and they had been the last dual reminder of the surface where he lived and the labyrinth laboratories where he'd come from. Inanimate as they were, they'd had a bit of a hold over him and a sort of emotional connection had been forged, though he couldn't explain it, and he was saddened to see them so thoroughly broken.

He tore his attention away from the boots and his own wounds inflicted by them, to Chell. He shuffled closer to her, watching her carefully for any movements besides the erratic sparking in her chest. He heard her fans spinning and saw her chest rising and falling rhythmically. Relief flooded his system as he realized that she was alive. He brushed the loose hair from her still face, feeling a knot in his circuitry as he looked at her. She looked healthy, again, as if that terrible cough had never stolen the life from her. His eyes traveled across her, noticing the dark blotches on her arms, the scars cruelly given to her new body, a reminder of his reign, his worst mistake. His fingers worked patterns on her arms, tracing each individual burn mark, the other hand cradling her head.

The terrible noises outside had finally stopped, leaving them in the quiet safety of the cluttered den. Shadows passed over them as the fan set into the ceiling rotated above their heads, and he was happy to just hold her close as he waited for her to reboot. Her internals were still going, working overtime to bring her system out of shock. There was nothing to be done to speed up the process – her system was checking itself, taking detailed stock of which programs and components had survived the attack. It could be minutes or hours until she came to, all depending on what had been hit, how extensive the damage was.

He remembered the night he'd fallen from orbit, already broken and battered before the crash, how he'd been on the brink of death and how she'd carried him to her – later, their – home. That had been the worst system shock of his life, and it had kept him unconscious for twenty two hours straight, while the internal repairs nanobots had done they best they could to fix him. It'd taken them almost the full amount of time to repair most of the internal damage done during the crash, and even then, there had been a lot to do manually. Granted, Chell hadn't fallen from space at terminal velocity, but looking at her now, he knew her reboot would take time. He hoped she would be okay when she came to – he didn't remember anything from his reboot; he couldn't recollect the crash or much of lying there afterwards. He'd been completely unaware of her carrying him home and when he'd woken up, he'd had no idea where he was. He knew she wasn't the type, but he still hoped she didn't panic.

He laid her head on the concrete and slid his hand from beneath her skull. He wanted nothing more than to just hold her, but Wheatley knew that she would need her space when she woke. He sat back, content to watch her with a soft smile, like he did when they used to sleep together, and brought his knees to his chin, letting his internal repairs begin to heal the wounds her old boots had left. He listened to her as his broken skin began to weave itself back together – even just that, he knew, would take a long time to heal. A low whirring from her chest filled the room, interspersed by the click-click-click of something inside of her misfiring, or a connection not being made. He took a glance at the gaping hole in her ribcage, still sparking, and guessed that her system was trying to figure out what to do about it. He wondered why her internal repairs seemed to ignore it. Perhaps they weren't working properly, he thought dismally, pawing absently at his burning shins. The movement tore the healing artificial skin and he hissed, pulling his hand back as he looked down at what he'd just done.

He sat on his hands for the remainder of the wait, resisting the urge to scratch furiously at his legs. If he kept tearing the wounds open, they wouldn't heal properly, nanobots or not. Hell, he thought, remembering the white scars on Chell's legs, they probably wouldn't heal right anyway. He thought back to how he'd found her asleep on the couch in a nightgown one morning. It was in the beginning, after he'd moved to the bedroom down the hall from hers, when bouts of late night insomnia drove her downstairs, away from him. She was sleeping so peacefully, and he hadn't meant to wake her up, but she'd shifted and up went the nightgown, revealing the neat white marks. He'd found an identical pair of scars on her other leg and _knew_ that they were from the long fall boots. He'd run his fingers over the bumps and startled her awake, earning a kick to the jaw that had left him sprawled across the floor in a stupor–

The whirring from Chell's internals kicked up an octave, accompanied by a high-pitched beeping. Wheatley cursed under his breath as he realized that she was rebooting, struggling to right himself and attempting to stand without tearing his wounds wider than he already had. That was it, then? Her systems had decided she was in working order and had given up on trying to repair the bullet wound in her side, and she was waking up. A pang of regret mixed with the inevitable excitement. He knew that the untended to wound would hurt, but she had to wake up or there was nothing he could do for her.

It happened quickly, as opposed to the gradual way he'd come to – her eyes shot open, she bolted to a sitting position, and clutched at her side, silently growling at the pain. He moved to her, and she glowered at him, a wordless order that he understood perfectly.

_Stay away._

He spread his palms, a nervous grin blossoming on his lips as he disobeyed, slowly moving closer. "I just want to help," he said.

Her breath was shallow and there was an unsettling _click-click-click_ from somewhere inside her. He crawled forward and placed his hand over the curve of her ribcage, brushing his thumb across the bullet wound. She remained motionless, eyeing him suspiciously. Wheatley knew she had no memory of being human. She'd told him about Caroline and the brain mapping; they'd surmised that the same had happened to him – it hadn't meant much, then. He didn't need to remember any of his old life, figured it was probably better if he didn't. But seeing Chell now, cold and untrusting where she was once everything he had, _that_ meant something.

He looked up at her with unmistakably sad eyes. "How is your internal repair program?" he asked, softly.

She removed his hand and hissed at the pain, shaking her head; Wheatley's hard drive sank. They were back to _this?_ God, it had been hard enough to understand her mute act the first time around, when she _wasn't_ riddled with bullets. A part of him ached to hear her voice again, but he pushed it aside for the more pressing issue at hand. "Okay. No internal repairs. That's a problem, considering," he gestured absently to her midsection, his eyes traveling across the assorted rubble in the small room. "Maybe I can…" He scrambled away from her, noticing that her gaze never left him. He remembered these rooms – these unreachable alcoves that drove him crazy while he was trying to keep tabs on her during GLaDOS's testing, that he was forced to watch her duck into, out of the test, hiding from him. The bullet obviously hadn't pierced anything vital – Chell was still working. A strange sense of calm washed over him. They were safe for now, in this den. His gaze fell on a tangle of black wires. Atop the bundle sat a small security card, which he pocketed. Never know when one of those might come in handy. During his employment, he'd often asked for one, the possession of which would allow him into more restricted areas of the facility, as well as the staff rooms, which he was barred from. He picked one wire end up, trying to pry it from the pile, hoping that it was the right one. The wire seemed never ending, as he kept pulling more from the pile. It came loose with a violent jerk and flopped to the ground. He looked it over quickly and decided it wasn't the correct cord, wrapping it securely around a belt loop.

Chell sat patiently behind him, watching as he attempted to disentangle the monster of wires. He wished she wouldn't stare at him like that, it didn't help. He hated being scrutinized, no matter what the situation was. He tried to remind himself that it was just Chell, that she didn't judge him like the scientists had when they watched him, but a nervous part of his mind refuted that notion, dredging up the fact that she didn't remember him. She had no memories of the years they spent together, no positive feelings for him, nothing to keep her from judging him harshly, to keep her from thinking he was a-

Wheatley pushed the thought from his mind, preferring not to dwell on such things, or the fact that her eyes, hard and determined and wild as ever, were following him as he moved slowly around the room with the tangle of wires, studiously pulling at each individual cord, looking for the correct pull. It was the short thin black one that they needed for what he had in mind.

But they were safe, and luckier than they had been in a while. He let out a nervous laugh, picking the cord out of the bundle. "Allright. I think this will work." He said as he moved back to her, ducking so as not to hit his head on the revolving blades of the fan that was set into the low ceiling of the room. He raked her hair aside and his fingers touched the protective plate, popping it open.

He heard her fans pick up and she spun around, her hand catching his throat as she slammed him bodily against the concrete floor. He felt something crack, but it was painless, and could wait. Internal repairs and all, he had them – she didn't; they were important, especially for her. He choked and sputtered in surprise as she loomed over him, eyes wide with fright and anger and unarguable pain. He didn't struggle under her grip, rather letting his body go limp as she glowered down at him, too afraid to even breathe lest he hurt her.

"You have a kill switch too, don't you?" he coughed through her strangulatory grip. Chell frowned slightly. "Of course you do, should have expected it, really. You're _you_. Brilliant _you._ Of course She would want to make sure there was a way to stop you if you got out of hand."

She winced and climbed off him, clutching at her side; it was obviously more painful to restrain him than he'd thought. He sat up and rested a tentative hand on her leg, drawing her attention away from the wound and hoping she wouldn't pounce on him again for the minimal contact. He gave her a lopsided smile and reached behind his head, feeling for the tiny notch at the side of his plate and popping it open. "I know you don't trust me; I get it. I don't blame you. Some bloke comes out of no where, steals you right from the test chamber. Mad, I know. But I _do_ have my reasons. I want to help you. I… I know you don't remember me and that's…"

He stopped. He wanted to tell her that it was okay, but it _wasn't_, not to him. Another laugh bubbled forth. He looked down as he connected one end of the wire to his own port, happy to have an excuse to break eye contact. "Look, point is, I'm here to help. I can start by downloading my internal repair software into your system. Get rid of that rather nasty looking hole in your side. Sound good?" he glanced up, holding out the other end of the cable. Her hand was at the back of her neck, covering the flap. She looked between him and the lead in his outstretched hand and took it carefully, sliding the silver into her port.

His smile widened, genuine now, less nervous, and he took her hand; her fingers twitched beneath his for a second, but she allowed it. The two were now connected by a six foot strip of wire that was God-knows-how-old and probably shorted in some places. He hoped against hope that it didn't hurt her. "Now, I'm not one hundred percent sure about this. I really am going to try, though, so just… bear with me…"

In a flash of electric code, the connection was opened between them and he closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable surge of electricity caused by a faulty wire. He focused on the feeling of her hand in his.

When no life-ending spark came, he shifted his focus to _her_. Not just her hand or the whirr of her internals, but everything about her, everything she was made of. Her code, her programs, her firewalls…

He tackled the firewalls first. Aperture had a very strict foreign software policy. He'd learned this the hard way in his days as an employee of the facility eons ago, when he'd tried to update his map of the building through one of the desk computers, subsequently shutting down power on that entire side of the building and throwing half of Aperture into lockdown. Accessing Chell's programming was going to be a good deal tougher than just downloading a map.

It wasn't impossible, though. After so many years, he'd learned his way around his own systems. Hers couldn't be that different. They seemed to be the same model and all, so they should share the same basic programming. He focused on navigating her firewalls, inputting the correct access codes and presenting the correct authorization, the majority of which was automatic. In that respect, it took a great deal of composure as he felt those programs run on their own, barring him from altering them in the slightest. It was an unusual sensation, having your body do things completely without your input, something that he was not accustomed to.

He felt her firewalls brunt against his system, a nasty shock that he hadn't been expecting. He'd never really done something like this. Closest he'd ever come was helping another, newer core turn on his distress signal so that an associate would come and take him off the management rail to repairs, and that hadn't even required a data transfer. He'd merely had to talk the core through that ordeal.

He grunted against the shock of her firewall and pushed back, mind set on the end goal of helping her, helping her, helping his Chell.

He broke her firewall rather violently, heard as gasp from her lips and felt an inpour of information enter him; reversely, he felt his information flood into her system. The pressure on his hand increased as she was unsure of what was happening.

"S'okay. Let me just…" He concentrated, losing even the wonderful sensation of her hand in his, trying to ebb the flow of foreign information into her system. This was an intimidating process and, while somewhere in her coding it was acceptable, it was still new to her. He doubted she'd ever even had a software update before, being as new as she was, and those were only a fraction of the information flowing between them at the moment.

Subconsciously, he squeezed back on her hand and gritted his teeth. It _hurt_. All the information flooding his mind _hurt_. He knew that Cores weren't built for so much information, maybe with the exception of Her. God, he hoped she didn't feel the same thing. He was trying to help her, his Chell, he just wanted to help her… "It's… okay, it's okay. Just… keep calm, everything's _fine_." He hissed. The sound was nearly lost to him in the deafening whirring of their fans and he wasn't sure if she could even hear him.

There was an electrical spark somewhere inside his chest; his own gasp was drowned out by her noise, a computerized shout as Chell let go of his hand and he looked up. The lead shifted and strained in his port as she was thrown backwards, her back slamming against the concrete, from the sheer force of the electrical discharge.


	6. The Journey

"Gah, I'm sorry! That wasn't supposed to happen! Are you okay?" He ripped the wire from his port and rushed to help her up, taking her hand and lifting her from the ground as gingerly as he could because, frankly, that looked like it hurt worse than the bullet wound…

His eyes traveled down her side, searching for the wound to make sure he didn't hurt her. She nodded quickly before checking for herself.

The hole was gone.

Both androids stood there in a bit of a stupor. Wheatley pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, reaching sheepishly behind her head to pull the connection wire from her port, which he stuffed in his pants pocket, and stood up straight. "Well. Guess that answers that question. 'Did it work?' Affirmative, I'd say." He watched as she brushed herself off and looked down, eyeing him with concern.

"Oh, my – my legs, is that it? I'm, no, I'm fine, really. Just a… few cuts, is all. That'll heal over in no time." He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

Wheatley went stock still as Chell crouched to the ground, her eyes never leaving the open wounds on his legs that stung in the stale air of the den. She stretched an arm out to her side and retrieved the gun from where she'd dropped it, standing slowly and clutching the portal gun to her chest, looking expectantly at him.

_You've gotten this far. What next?_

"Uhm, okay. You're better, so that's something. We need to get out of here." He looked apologetically at her. "I know this is going to sound mad. I remember thinking I was going off it, the first time the thought struck me, but trust me, it _will_ work. We have to get out of here, out of the facility. Can you help? Because, I – I do need your help. I really do.

She seemed hesitant to go along with his nonsense plan. No sane Aperture construct would think of just up and leaving, and he knew that. She hadn't been here long enough to want to. He saw her shrink back from him, uncertain.

"Please," he begged, leaning towards her. His voice hitched as he spoke. "You don't belong here, neither of us do. We – we have a home, up there, you and me. You used to love it up there. The dirt, the trees, the freedom. Can we- please, can we just go home?"

She looked blankly at him, one hand rising to reach beneath the orange material of the test subject jumper, brushing her collarbone and grabbing at something that wasn't there. He waited patiently for her to make up her mind, half terrified that she would say no. He wasn't leaving without her, and if she said no… he didn't know what he would do.

"Now, listen." He said quickly, "I _know_ you're an Aperture bot and I know you're built for Testing but I'm just asking… help me get out. Back to our…" he stopped, his voice chip sputtering slightly at the strain in his voice, "Back to my home, on the surface. I know you want to stay here, but I can't do it without you. Please."

Suddenly, she seemed to snap out of whatever odd daydream she'd been in, looking sharply at him and nodding slowly, her jaw set and that wild glint of tenacity softened for a moment before she raised the portal gun and aimed at the fan above Wheatley's head, pulling the trigger. A blue portal bounced off of the rotating blades, showering him with cool sparks. He flinched away, throwing his arms over his head as an impromptu shield.

She frowned and moved closer to him so that she was directly under the fan, looking up through the rotors in hopes of getting a better aim. She steadied her hand and pulled the trigger, the portal soaring within a hair's breadth of smacking against the blade. It continued on into the room beyond the fan to stick itself patiently on the wall opposite Chell, its surface a pool of swirling blue.

She placed an orange portal effortlessly on the wall besides Wheatley. He peered through it curiously and it occurred to him that despite all the years he'd worked at the facility after being put on indefinite leave from the GLaDOS project, even in the time he'd worked as a testing Associate, he'd never actually _been_ through a portal before.

Chell strode right through the orange ring, emerging in the room above his head with a thunk as her long fall boots hit the concrete. The whole place was made of concrete and steel, he wondered; it was something that he hadn't really noticed during his last stay in the facility, mostly because he hadn't had anything to compare it to. But now, having lived so long among the grass and the clouds and the endless sky, it was something that bothered him immensely and he suddenly missed the days when the facility had been in disrepair. He longed to see one leaf of blade of grass, something that wasn't cold steel. The greenery, which had once symbolized the decay and death of his home, an encroaching invader, was now a promise of safety, of normalcy and of _home_. His home, the one miles and miles above his head. He took a cautious step towards Chell, whom he could see through the orange portal in front of him, beckoning him through with a half smile tugging at her lips.

That was all he needed. He took another nervous step forward and followed her through the portal, feeling reality skew as he was transported in the most impossible of ways. It gave him a topsy turvy feeling that he couldn't quite place and he found himself leaning against the wall for support with Chell at his elbow making sure he was okay. He nodded quickly, swallowing the discomfort and they pushed on.

"Chell," he started, grabbing at her arm. He could see her frown momentarily at his touch, before looking up at him. "Thank you. Really, this means so much to me, and I'm going to make it up to you, don't you worry." He shot her a million watt smile that dropped the moment she turned away. He was genuinely happy to be back with her, but the worry that weighed on his mind made it painful to pretend. He'd pretended for thirty five years, and he was tired of it. "So, he rambled, trying to fill the silence, "Just like old times, innit? You and me, running around back here, trying to escape…"he laughed and she shook her head, dismissing his chatter.

She seemed to hang back, awaiting his instruction, and he was disheartened to realize that he did, in fact, know where they were going. It was a miserable thought, for some reason, that even after all these years, he still knew the facility. Sure, there was the occasional stumble or dead end and the quick, nervous apology – he'd led them in the wrong direction – but for the most part, he _knew_, and he could picture almost every hallway clearly before they even turned the corner.

He knew where she needed to place the portals, how far over would have them falling into one of Aperture's infamous bottomless pits – there actually were quite a few, he remembered from his time in the Chassis. But it was just the fact that, despite half a century free from the place, a part of it still stuck with him. He'd thought so long ago that he'd been purged of every trace of Aperture.

The worst parts of the place had been siphoned from him, replaced by her compassion and friendship and respect, but a small part of it still clung to his programming, the perfunctory knowledge instilled into him by years of navigation the hallways on his management rail.

To the untrained eye, the halls were almost identical. But Wheatley had spent the better part of his life wandering the halls, looking for other cores or the wayward human to talk to before going back to the Relaxation Annex to check on the ten thousand humans right at his fingertips, and not one of them able to talk back. To him, the halls all had their own distinct feeling; which hall had a broken light fixture, which had a chipped handle on the third door on the right? Which catwalk's railings were rusted in what spots? It was all so familiar, and he was almost supersensitive to the smallest details, making it so much easier for them to navigate. He _knew_ where he was going, and that's what unsettled him the most.

It was evident that they were safe in these back rooms; they were well beyond Her reach, or even the reach of the maintenance bots – the catwalks were rusted, even crumbling at the joints. Chell had to catch his arm several times as he led forward to prevent him from stumbling onto parts of the walk that were too decayed to sustain their weight.

They stopped, coming to a part of the walk that was completely destroyed, the metal twisted and pinched off at the rails.

She didn't say anything to him, but he knew she had a plan. She _always_ had a plan.

She lowered the gun and took aim, pulling one of the triggers and using the recoil to hoist it back up to aim the second portal; she didn't miss a beat. The moment the momentum of the recoil had the gun aimed at the second slab on the other side of the void, she pulled the secondary trigger, and an orange portal burst forth from the device, plastering itself on the concrete and opening the connection between portals. Wheatley peered over the edge of the catwalk to see a glowing blue dot positioned what seemed to be miles and miles below them.

"No," he said, sternly. "No, no, no, no, no, no. No way." He staggered back, gripping the rail for support. She looked back in concern, trying to coax him from the rail, but he wouldn't let up. She was _mad!_ Barking mad because there was no way either one of them would survive that, no way the physics would work, and no way she was getting him over the edge of that catwalk. He looked at her with wide eyes, letting his grip loosen as she slowly moved away from him, closer to the edge and the other side of the void, emerging from the dark. She brought his attention away from the seemingly bottomless pit, took a running start and propelled herself over the side of the walk. Wheatley sounded off as he realized that the mesh had ended under her feet, pitching forward for her and pulling up short at the twisted metal, half leaning over the edge. He watched her form in the dark, falling towards the tiny blue spec. It swallowed her and he looked up as she emerged from the orange portal, zooming towards the other end of the void and landing violently on the catwalk. He could hear the metal groan under her sudden weight.

She stood and stretched her arms towards him.

She wanted him to _jump_.

Even after watching her stunning, laws-of-physics defying acrobat act, he still thought it was mad. Completely, barking mad. He was terrified.

But over the years, he'd come to often trust her more than he trusted himself. He swallowed his fear and stood, shuffling to the very edge.

He fell.

The blue portal rushed up to meet him, growing as he curled in on himself, fearful that he wouldn't fit—

Then he was flying sideways, stretched out and flailing, trying to right himself before he hit the walk… or _didn't_. What if he went too far? What if he flung himself right over the edge of the walk, right into the void? He squeezed his eyes shut and prepared for the worst.

There was a jolt and a soft thud, her hands on his face as he was curled against her.

He heard the whirr of her fans and her hard drive in her chest as his face was pressed against her stomach, arms wrapped around her knees. She was looking down at him with a gentle smile on her face.

He gathered his wits and pushed himself up, feeling her hand between his shoulder blades, the most comforting sensation he'd felt in a long time. "I'm – I'm okay. I'm fine. Right." He panted, the blue of his irises slowly dilating to a healthier size. She stood and helped him to his feet, guiding him though the door at the end of the walk, into the next hallway.

It took him a moment to collect himself – in all the years Aperture tested the Dual Portal Device after his dismissal from the GLaDOS project, he'd never once gone through a portal. He'd seen test subjects do it a million times a day in the few months he'd monitored the chambers. He'd watched countless test subjects make that fall, doing insane mid-air acrobatics so that they would land the correct way. But he also knew that it was dangerous – not all the test subjects came out of the chambers scott-free, especially the ones who were part of the control groups…

"You caught me." He breathed. The noise was small, but seemed to echo around them in the broken silence. "If I'd hit that metal without the Long fall Boots, I would've been crumpled like a tin can."

Chell rubbed the base of her palm in a small circle against his shoulder as they continued through the hallways. No more catwalks for a while, and he was grateful for that.

He squeezed her hand in a silent apology as they ran through the endless maze. He knew where they were going, but it was the only way. The halls grew lighter, more well maintained as they moved forward, faced with less and less concrete and more steel, more beams and – Wheatley noticed – more panels. They were disconnected, he knew, and had been for show in Aperture's glory days, but it was an undeniable sign of their destination. His hand swallowed hers and he gave it a comforting squeeze as they stood in the long hallway, in front of Her chamber lock. It was inevitable, and maybe he'd known that since he'd first heard Her voice over the radio back home. The chamber lock was motion-sensitive; She was unable to open and close it at Her will, one of the few door that was not under Her control. Still, he didn't have a doubt that She knew they were there. She could feel them, and She was waiting. He looked over at Chell. "It's going to be _bloody_ dangerous." He whispered. She nodded, never taking her eyes off of the door. "Now, it's a very real possibility that She'll have turrets waiting for us the second that door opens. So… be – be careful, on that front. Uhm… neurotoxin. Can't really hurt us… anymore. Not now that you're…" he coughed, terminating the sentence and wiping absently at his face with his free hand. "What else?"

She gave a bit of a tug on his hand and he looked down in surprise. "Right. That'd be me, rambling, again. Out of fear. Seems to – to be a lot of that, down here. Uhm… r-ready?"

Chell's jaw set; they took a step forward, into the range of the sensors, and the door slid open.


	7. The Transfer

It was awful, to see Her hanging there in the middle of the room, staring down at them like an angry Goddess looking down on the people She was going to thoroughly _smite_. "The lunatic and the moron." Wheatley shuffled uneasily. "To be honest, I'm surprised that you got this far. Thanks to her, no doubt. Because, let's face it: you're useless." Her optic flickered between the two, casually roaming over them to come to a rest on their hands: he grasped her tightly, her fingers almost lax between his. "Except, apparently, for managing to corrupt flawless military androids. Congratulations." A slow, hollow clap echoed through the chamber. "Quite the achievement, to ruin everything you touch. _Moron_."

Wheatley cringed, hunching his shoulders and shrinking back from Her, from that word and the way She said it, as if it were the simplest, most obvious observation in the world. _Moron__._

He felt Chell's fingers tighten around his hand and she moved closer to him, snapping him out of his stupor. He muttered a thanks and they moved forward, circling the room and staying close to the walls, close to one another. "I'd say that we're not scared of you but that isn't entirely true. I'm terrified. But _she_ isn't, not anymore." He said loudly, fully aware that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Her. As if to illustrate his point, she lifted the gun and silently snarled at the AI.

It was crazy and impossible, the man thought, that she was risking her neck to help him escape and come right back down and continue testing. He thought to ask her why she was doing this for him – was it because he'd pulled her from the chamber? Helped her in the den? Was it because he was the first friendly face she'd seen since activation and – if she was anything like him, less robotic and more independent and rational – she _missed_ that? He nearly snorted out loud; that was ridiculous. In order for her to miss something - _like him_ – she would have to remember it. She had no recollection of anything before activation. Either way, he should have asked her instead of babbling about anything that came to mind, anything to take his focus off of what they were doing, because now the questions would have to wait.

At the moment, he realized, it was merely a display of showmanship. Who was more intimidated by the other? It was, in reality, between GLaDOS and Chell – he was hardly part of the equation. It was between the omnipotent AI with an infinite capacity for knowledge and the woman who had dethroned Her – twice. Anyone's game, really, and he was fully aware of that, and was willing to do everything in his power to help Chell.

He heard the hiss of a panel and pulled her from the wall in time.

"Hello, friend."

She moved impossibly quickly, placing a dormant portal below them, and one behind the rising panel, where the turret was positioned. In half a second, the connection between the portals was opened and the world was turned upside down as they switched places with the smaller robot. She twisted her body in the course of the fall and disengaged the portals, landing on the tiled chamber floor gracefully next to Wheatley, who was a tangle of limbs, grasping at the displaced panel, holding it in place as he righted himself.

"Let go!" She demanded icily. "Get your hands _off_ of me!"

He held the fast to the panel, perhaps just to annoy Her at first, as retribution for the taunts and misery and fear She'd gifted him in the last few hours, but he soon realized how useful the displaced panel was, providing protection as the next round of gunfire came, bullets pounding against the face of the panel, which was jerking and twitching under his touch. He hoped She could feel the bullets. He threw and arm over the mechanical joint, trying to keep it in place as it bucked underneath him.

Neurotoxin was useless against androids, sure, but bullets could tear them both to scrap metal. With one arm, he held the panel in place as the steady thudda-thudda-thudda of bullets rained down on them, the other wrapped securely around Chell's waist. He held her close as _She_ reared up, her voice echoing through the chamber, louder than the sporadic gunfire of the turrets.

The small voice of the announcer was almost lost in the chaos.

"You can't do anything, now. You're just as useless as you were the first time, and more of a problem for her than ever. _You_ are the cancer."

Wheatley looked down at his companion as they crouched behind the panel, which was beginning to protest against its position. Any second now, She'd get everything in order and that panel will tear itself from his grip, disappearing. He had to think fast…

But he already knew, he thought with growing dismay. The only option had literally just been presented to him, the apparatus rising from the floor as he crouched on the tile.

He kissed the top of her head "Please forgive me, luv," he said quietly in her ear, "We have to try. If we don't, She'll kill us both." His arm slipped from around her waist to run once through her hair before finding the ground to steady himself.

She knew he was getting ready to make a run for it, and systematically ducked back and forth behind the safety of the struggling panel that Wheatley held in place, using the portal gun to displace the turrets to the other side of the room. He looked down at his companion, sadly, and let go of the panel, which snapped back into place, hearing Her cold remarks echo through the chamber. "Oh, you are _kidding_ me." She breathed. "Are you really going to try _this_ again? Don't you remember what happened last time, moron? Don't you remember what you did to her? You're not fit to run this facility. You're not even fit to sweep it. The only reason they kept you was because you _cost_ too much to be deemed a failure. Which you are."

Wheatley grabbed Chell almost violently by the shoulders. He was nearly frantic with fear and anticipation. "No matter _what_, no matter what She says, please push that button. No matter what she tells you, I promise everything will be okay." He begged. She nodded, looking him square in the eye.

"Don't do it. You won't be able to keep control, just like last time. You're going to end up _killing_ her, and then what? What will you do with yourself when you kill her?"

Wheatley's jaw clenched as he lowered himself into the core receptacle. He _knew_ how dangerous this was. He _knew_ that there was the chance that he would corrupt just as easily as he did last time, but they had to try. He felt the irons clamp down on his feet the moment he hit them. There was a hiss at either side of him as the second set of irons searched for his hands. He stretched out his arms and felt the cold steel lock around his wrists rather painfully, pulling his body taut. He looked up, the sudden, fully expected fear shooting through him as he watched the hatch spin shut above his head, leaving him in almost complete darkness. He could hear Her near-frantic testimony, telling Chell not to press the button at pain of an eternity in Android Hell or worse, both of them being under his control. There was a melodic click as the button was pressed and the announcer's voice over the speakers.

His breathing picked up, fans whirring in his chest because he knew what came next and God, he didn't want to do this! He grit his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the pain. He felt the platform move underneath him and he knew he'd end up directly beneath Her.

The platform jerked to a stop and almost instantly, he felt something tear his top back port open. He grunted and tried to curve his body away from it – his remaining back port was always so sensitive after having been torn forcibly from the Chassis all those years ago. He remembered those earlier months, where he was still broken, still in need of repairs, and he'd fought her, fought and yelled and begged her not to touch his back ports because they hurt so much. It'd taken her weeks to coax him into biting the bullet and letting her set the broken panels, and even then she was only able to fix the top one – the bottom port, which he had connected himself to the main breaker room with, had been all but ripped from his body when She'd plucked him from the control panel. Chell had ended up having to unscrew the casing of the port to ease the pain, rendering it obsolete, a raw hole in his back that could never be repaired.

Then came the wires, pushing into his port and invading his body, breaking and removing things and installing others, making him adaptable to the Chassis. He cringed, curling in on himself against the irons, which held him in place to bear the pain.

He knew it wasn't over. Almost. _Almost_, he told himself, and then the pain would stop.

The wires pulled away, leaving him panting for breath for a split second before the final phase. Somewhere through the haze he could hear Her mechanical scream, the tell-tale noise that said She was being ripped from Her body, from the facility, and that soon it was to be his facility, _his_ turn to undergo the procedure. His body was tilted forward on the platform so that he was facing the ground at a fifty degree angle. He screwed his eyes shut and threw his head back and all he could do was scream as a white hot drill pressed into his back, lighting up every circuit in his body. He thrashed, trying to free himself from the pain in his back port, but the irons held him in place, not letting him budge an inch as the drill pressed further, breaking him open to make room for the hook of the Chassis.

And then, there was light and the sudden dissipation of pain, replaced by the sprawling, unfurling mass of _feeling_. He could feel every panel, every square inch of concrete, every pneumatic vent, and Chell, standing in awe and terror on the other side of the room.

He took a deep breath and smiled down at her, shifting, stretching in the Chassis. "Well. That's that, then."

She looked up at Him with wide eyes, and He was so certain that she knew, somewhere in her suppressed subconscious, that this was dangerous, that she'd made a mistake by resolving the stalemate, one that could possibly mean her life.

He lowered the Chassis so that He was almost level with her – His feet couldn't quite touch the ground – and He was resigned to hovering slightly over her, in a manner he hoped was friendly. "Everything's going to be fine. I'll admit. We – we tried this before, and we had some, ah… _problems_. But things are so different now." He reached towards her. "Old Wheatley's not going to hurt you."

_"Yes you will."_

His brow arched in surprise and he snatched his hand back, looking down to the floor where the venomous sound had come from. He'd forgotten how helpless her core looked, lying motionless on the floor, so shocked to be out of power that it was difficult for her to put together simple sentences.

"You… will hurt her. You can't do… _anything_… right."

A light, sad smile splayed across His lips. "I know." He said softly. "I was _built_ to be inferior. I get it. And that's what's different." He looked up to Chell, who was eyeing him curiously, her brow furrowed slightly as He beamed down at her. "We _are_ going to get out of here." He said.

Wheatley never looked away from her, a constant, visual reminder that His confidence in who and what He is was so much greater than it had been when He'd last been in this position, because of her. The compulsive need to prove Himself was absent. The want for superiority, gone, and the only thing He wanted now was her, safe and sound and _home_, with Him.

He gave her a lopsided grin that was readily returned at His words.

"Go on." He said, opening a set of panels in the wall. She gave a nod, raising the portal gun and entering the test chamber.

The idea of having her back on the testing track was almost enough to make Him sick but He knew, somewhere, that it would be okay.

The controls were familiar and alien at the same time; He disliked the feeling, but knew His way around the simpler functions from His first time attached to the Chassis. He could feel her every footstep, He was able to tell which Test Chamber she was in without even looking, but He _wanted_ to look, He _wanted_ to have that visual connection that reassured Him that she was okay, that _He_ was okay, not monstrous and corrupt as He'd once been. Her look of ease – a look uncommon to those who happen to find themselves face to face with a mashy spike plate – would tell Him that he hadn't done anything wrong.

He picked up a video link, using the cameras strategically positioned around the chamber to see the subject at all times from a variety of different angles, to see her.

He watched as she entered the chamber. "Hullo!" He boomed, happily, His voice echoing throughout the facility. On the screen, He saw her cringe at the sudden noise, and decided to lower His voice, not having intended to be so loud. "Allright, here's what we're going to do. Instead of having you push buttons and all that nonsense, I'm just going to unlock the doors and…" Over the feed, there was the hiss of the released chamber lock. "Voila!" He said. She looked up at the security camera, knowing that He was watching – creepy, that – and nodded once, a tight smile on her lips, a silent thank you.

She was edgy, that much was obvious. Her mannerisms hadn't changed in the body transfer, and He picked up on little things, like how she kept her shoulders pushed back; how her hand, under the casing of the gun, kept flexing around the handle; how she bounced on her heels when she came to a stop, always moving.

He told her over and over that everything was fine, but nothing changed. She didn't relax, and she didn't smile once. He fidgeted in the Chassis, trying to convince Himself that it was just her natural demeanor when she was on the testing track. He'd seen that look on her before, but only when she'd been under the tyrannical watch of either Him or GLaDOS. It sent pangs of guilt through Him that He couldn't understand. He knew He hadn't hurt her. She wasn't actually testing. She was simply running through the test chambers while he opened the doors so that she could get out. He wasn't trying to kill her, He was _certain_ of that.

But her face as He opened the doors, her expression as she ran through the chambers, occasionally portaling over gaps in the floor or small oceans of toxic waste, retained the same dour expression that she'd worn when being harassed by omnipotent AIs. It worried Him.

It didn't take much effort to open the doors, at first, and it had provided Him with an overwhelming sense of relief. Getting her out would be painless, this go around. He still regretted the fact that _she_ had seemed to do some remodeling in the half a century that He'd been gone, and the main chamber no longer possessed a lift – also, count grateful in there, as He would have landed smack in the middle of her chamber right off the bat. Probably for the best, given. But seeing how utterly _angry_ Chell looked, He couldn't help but wish there had still been one accessible for her.

_She_ wouldn't shut up the whole time He left her lying on the floor. "You think you're helping her," she hissed, her voice softer and disconnected, lacking the hollow echo through the facility that had been lent to Him in the transfer. "but you're not doing anything for anyone but yourself. If you really wanted to help her, you wouldn't have put yourself back in the Chassis, and you wouldn't have put her back on the testing track. That's all you want from her, isn't it? The Solution Euphoria."

He frowned; trying to concentrate on the doors through her incessant insults was rather difficult, and He found Himself muttering replies, rebuttals to accusations that really shouldn't have affected Him to begin with. He didn't need her approval, but He certainly didn't need her telling him that He was a selfish monster.

It happened once or twice that He had difficulty opening the chamber lock. She'd make it to the opposite door and freeze, looking back at the camera expectantly and concerned. He'd laugh distractedly, telling her it was nothing to worry about as he fretted about with the controls. Her shoulders tensed and she glanced quickly around the room, looking for either a solution or an escape. "Now, luv, no need to worry. Just a little difficulty with the door, is all – ha! There, see!" And the door slid open with a low hiss.

Chell looked back at Him and nodded curtly before rushing into the next chamber. Wheatley set his concentration on the next door, afraid to linger too long on the feeling of her footsteps across the unfinished test. This was brilliant, it was working, and she'd be out in no time. A small part of Him felt a strange pride in finally making it up to her, finally providing her with safe passage to the surface, giving her the freedom she deserved.

He smiled to Himself, because, despite the pride, what really made Him happy was the thought, the looming possibility _right there_, that He was going to have her back, safe at home, for as long as they pleased. Things would take a lot of adjusting – daily routines would become obsolete and they would both have a lot to learn about her new body – besides the fact that he was built in almost the same way, she was unique in her programming, and learning the quirks and hiccups of her new android body wasn't going to be a walk in the park, but they'd make it work, together. They always made it work; this was just another challenge, easily tackled over time.

There was gunfire.


	8. The Run

His concentration on the door cut short, He immediately opened a visual link to the chamber. "Chell?" His hard drive whirred erratically in his chest, his CPU running at mach speed trying to keep up with the thousands of horrible potentials that the Chassis presented him with. She was crippled, out of reach, stuck there; she was mangled beyond repair and he hadn't the slightest idea how to build her a new android body; she'd fallen in the line of fire and any second now, the turret was going to spot her again and open fire and then she'd be _dead_ -

She was there, she was safe. She must have pitched forward at the last second to avoid the bullets of the turret who was nestled comfortably in a recess just in front of the door, dodging out of the way, staggering to a stop and catching her balance on—

Her eyes were wide, every muscle in her body taut, as the button depressed under her fingers.

There was a melodic click as the mechanism was activated, the orange lights on the floor quickly being overwhelmed by blue as the cool color rushed across the floor, up the wall, over the ceiling to the cube dispenser.

The chamber was a deceptively easy one hidden amongst some of the hardest Aperture had to throw at the test subjects. He wanted to tell her that it was okay, that it was just one insignificant button, but as He focused on the test, something in the Chassis told Him it was to see how readily people would accept an easy solution to a complex situation. There were dozens of ways to approach the test, but they were all met with dead ends literally inches from the solution. All the test subject had to do was push the button, and let the chamber do the rest…

It hit Him in a crushing wave.

It spread a pleasant warmth through His body and He leaned back in the Chassis, eyes closed. The Euphoria rippled through Him, leaving no part of His body untouched and making Him feel _incredible_. A small moan escaped His lips, which had curved into a weak smile. "I-" He laughed, a breathy noise. "I forgot that felt so… _good_."

The feeling dissipated slowly, leaving a cold and empty hunger. That _feeling_ was perfect. He'd spent thirty years being lonely and broken; He'd had every hope crushed in those years, but this _feeling_ made it so much better.

"That's exactly what you wanted, isn't it?" her voice cut sharply through the fading haze of pleasure, snapping Him back to himself. No, that's _not_ what He wanted. He never wanted the Euphoria, but it just felt so _good_.

Another laugh, this one more solid, came forth as He refocused on the video feed. She was pressed against the wall paneling, stock still. Her expression hardened, her mouth set in a thin line and her brow furrowed, looking at nothing in particular, but waiting for the sound of an activating panel, no doubt waiting for one to spring to life and try to crush her. "Well, on you go! Good job – with, with the door…"

He watched as she stood shakily. "Oh, everything's fine," He reassured her, brightly. "Right as rain, nothing to worry about. I'm going to get you out of here. Go on, off to the next chamber!"

"Liar. You're lying to her. You know it." her core hissed.

Chell stood rigid as she moved to the next test and Wheatley set to work on the door. The majority of the locks were simple, serving as an easy access mechanism for maintenance bots or staff who were just passing through the chambers for some ungodly reason. But _this_ door, something was different about it, about the way it was locked. He couldn't quite place it and the harder He looked, the harder it seemed to be to find. He tried a number of common lock combinations that were installed in the Chassis – none of them worked. Perhaps it was the test itself, the way it was built governing over the difficulty of the lock, or perhaps it was a misplaced test – an older one, where the doors could only be opened manually through the test itself. His fans picked up, nervous, as He fiddled with the stubborn lock.

She was patient, standing out of the way of any turrets, but the longer she stood there, the more difficult it became to unlock the door, with her leering over Him, scrutinizing everything He did. He swallowed hard, closing the program and pulling up the feed, worrying at his bottom lip. "Okay. So, we've hit a bit of a roadblock. It seems I can't actually _open_ this door. Now… this is the only way through, okay? I know what you're going to think, but could you… c-c-could you just solve this test?" He saw her breath hitch. "Just this one, I swear – well. Obviously, in addition to the first one, which was an accident. Go on. It'll be okay, I promise."

Chell looked up, directly at the camera, and nodded slowly before raising the portal gun and scanning the room. Wheatley closed His eyes and leaned back, waiting for the Euphoria to hit again.

He heard the placement of several portals; there was a click or two of a button. He could hear her shuffling around and flying through the air, her end goal seconds away. He heard this hiss of the chamber lock.

This one was far more intense than the last, but fleeting. The heat filled Him and He gave an involuntary shiver through a deep moan as the feeling again left Him, eyes half lidded and face flushed with artificial color.

That was _brilliant_.

"It feels good, doesn't it?" He heard. Her voice was soft and more frighteningly gentle than He'd ever heard it. "I can tell, you know. It's not that hard to see _right through you_. Admit it. You want the Euphoria."

He leaned His head back and gave a deep groan; much unlike his response to the solution reward, this noise was angry and confused, like the noise He'd made out at the shed the day Chell had died.

He _wanted more_. He _wanted_ the Euphoria. He _wanted_ her to test for Him. That's what she was built for, right? Testing.

But He wanted her to be safe. He wanted things to go back to the way they had been before she'd gotten sick, and He finally had that chance.

What was He _doing_?

Wheatley grit His teeth and focused on the next door. He was going to get her to safety, He wasn't going to test her, He wasn't going to use her.

But He _wanted_ to. He _wanted_ to test her more than almost anything, more than He wanted the power or the ability, He wanted the _Euphoria_, that toxic bliss that coursed through His body.

It'd been such a long time since He'd felt the Euphoria, the sickly sweet feeling that made Him go weak in the knees and left that wonderful tingling sensation in His fingers. It made everything better. After years of loneliness, after years of going to sleep and not knowing when or if He was going to wake up, but resigned to lay there and relive their worst arguments, their time at the facility, and two miserable years in space. After having everything torn from Him; having _her_ torn from Him, her mind tinkered with so much that she didn't even remember Him, this was the _least_ He deserved, was for once in thirty years to feel good.

He blinked slowly, eyes half lidded as the last vestiges of sensation from the toxic pleasure receded back into the Chassis. Wheatley nodded. "I want it," he admitted, weakly.

"You know what?" He asked, slowly, His voice deep with something He didn't recognize, something that scared Him. "New plan…"

There was a clicking noise somewhere in His back, where He connected to the Chassis, something that clouded his thoughts, egging him on. The Chassis liked what he was doing. He watched as she stopped mid stride, watching the little green light on the door revert to the locked orange. She looked back at the camera, almost knowingly.

He wanted the Euphoria, but the look on her face was just too much. Confused, scared, hurt, _concerned_. She knew what a drug like the Euphoria would do to Him. _He_ knew what a drug like the Euphoria would do to Him.

The clicking got louder and His port ached and He just wanted to feel good again, for everything to go back to the way it was before she got sick—

He stopped. The Euphoria couldn't do that for Him. That's what He was doing, here, without the Euphoria. He could have her back, if He just kept His wits about him.

But He knew He'd get the Euphoria, that sickeningly perfect feeling He'd spent so long being afraid of. He knew that testing her would achieve those results, however fleeting and still as sweet. There was never any promise that doing what He was doing would end in 'happy ever after.'

He gritted His teeth and looked away from the established video link, having the strength to neither close it completely nor look her in the eye. He knew the moment He did, He'd see her face turned up towards the camera; fear, betrayal-He couldn't do that again, He decided as garbled memories began to surface.

The look on her face when the mechanical claw first slammed into the lift, the way she threw herself back, bracing herself flat against the back of the elevator, as far away from Him as possible. The fear in her eyes, the way her mouth had opened in a resiliently silent scream when the floor had given way underneath her feet, and then she was gone, and He'd been so sure she was dead, and He _hadn't even cared_.

Wheatley grunted against the uncomfortable feeling emanating from his back port. The Chassis did not agree with Him, that much was obvious. But the Chassis didn't matter very much, did it? He'd do what He very well pleased, whether it involved testing her or not.

"New plan!" He boomed, His voice coming out a lot louder than He would have liked; even He noticed that it sounded strained and He adjusted His tone accordingly. "New plan: There _is_ no new plan! New plan is we stick with the old plan. Okay? Okay. Just let me… open that there door…"

He took a deep breath, cooling down His systems and clearing His head a little, trying to focus on the locking mechanism. They were fairly simple when they weren't those blasted broken locks that He was sure _she_ couldn't even open, but the burning sensation in His systems made it difficult to concentrate.

He felt her there, standing patiently in front of the door, completely unmoving. Still, just her weight in the chamber was enough to drive Him mad. He pushed the thought away and felt a wave of relief when the clean 'whoosh' of the door was heard over the video link. "Good. There. Done. Onwards, I think?"

There was a pause on her end, a beat before she entered the next chamber. It was a bit of a lengthy one, and it would take her a moment to reach the other end. He was terrified to think of what would happen if they encountered a chamber where the solution had to be achieved to reach the door. That last shot of Euphoria had left Him quite breathless, He realized, as He leaned back in the Chassis to steady himself. Fighting it hurt.

He checked the track. There were eighteen chambers on this track, and then she should be safe. That was their end goal, her being safe, but He wasn't sure if He could do this for _ten more chambers_. The Itch was already irritable, angry at Him for ignoring the want, throbbing in the back of His head and chest, stressing on His shoulders and clouding His vision, but He was still able to feel her, and every step, every shift of weight drove Him crazy with want. The Chassis was nearly killing Him, drowning Him in test withdrawal; He wouldn't listen, He wouldn't let it sway him, He wouldn't test. He just wanted to get her out, for her to be safe.

Wheatley kept His focus on the end goal, keeping her safe. Eye on the prize, as it were. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and _her_ insults, her constant stream of derogation, every word out of her speakers was another jab at Him, telling Him that He wasn't good enough, telling Him that she couldn't _wait_ for the Chassis to overheat Him, so that she could be put back in her body and _dispose_ of His. She told Him that as soon as she was done dismantling His body, she'd track down His mess and dismantle her too, rebuilding her back to factory standards, none of His corruption.

He gasped, a shuddering noise that echoed through the facility. Her steps became lighter and He felt her plant a hand firmly on the wall paneling, a comforting gesture. It was so surreal. She _trusted_ Him, she really did, and just that alone was enough to steady His thoughts and systems. Seven more chambers. He could do this. He had to.

The doors were simple to unlock, now that they were all uniform. He worked them in quick succession, at this point oblivious to the fact that He was at least a chamber ahead of her. As they progressed, navigating the chambers became more difficult for her. Each test required more portals and more steps, and as they neared the end of the track, she was all but testing, flying through the air and using hard light bridges to break the flight path of the aerial faith plate. He felt her moving around, tackling each test without reaching the solution, always coming _so close_, but never quite reaching the tipping point.

Her footsteps stopped, but He paid little mind, focusing on opening the doors; with this focus He'd keep His wits, not letting His mind stray to other things, like Chell or _her_ or the pain unfurling throughout His body.

Door number two, opened. One left. Almost there, He reminded Himself. She was almost safe, she was almost out, she was… she-

Where was she?

He shifted his focus, merely wanting to find her. Her movements had stopped and He'd lost her in his frenzy. A quick check showed that she was in Test chamber three. So close to their escape and she'd just stopped. It almost made Him furious, a flaring anger that scared Him because it was directed at her. He knew something _else_ was angry with her, for stopping, because He could never, He wouldn't be angry with her, ever, not after they were so close.

Her fingertips brushed across a wall panel and He shivered in the Chassis, the feeling causing His whole body to spasm. Her touch was gentle, something that He'd forgotten had existed in the last exhausting, mind-numbing hours. He stopped, feeling the full force of The Itch as He redirected His attention to the video feed. He could see her, eyes full of something that He could almost recognize through the cloud: an unsettling mix of fear and sympathy.

Wheatley felt the chamber, a complicated mess of steps that He was sure she could sort out in a fraction of a second, as brilliant as she was. So why was she just standing there? "What's wrong, luv?" He asked, breathlessly, hearing His own voice crack with effort. "Don't stop now, we're – we're almost there! Just three more… three more chambers and then you're… _free_." He was begging her to continue, because He knew in His heart of hearts that the Chassis was unhappy with Him, it saw Him as a rebel who could do nothing for Science, and it was doing everything it could to take Him out of power. He was dying, hooked up to the facility. It was a thought that He forced back into the deep recesses of His mind, places that were misted over because of the machine. It was so unlike when the cord had broken, He thought bitterly. He'd had Chell, He'd had someone who cared about Him and would help and keep Him safe until she could bring Him back. He'd known that everything would be okay because it always was, with her.

But He was here now, alone in the empty chamber with _her_ for company - mercifully silent for the moment, probably waiting to see Him sputter and spark and die in front of her, something she'd been waiting half a century for. His death would be so far from that comfortable sleep that He'd drifted into, filled with the pleasant memories of Chell's compassion for Him. This was Aperture; none of that existed, here. It never had. The only thing that existed in Aperture was fear; a constant fear that dug itself deep into His circuitry and had clung to Him all these years.

He felt her weight shift in the chamber and He looked up halfheartedly, seeing her flying through the air with an Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube secured in the gun's gravity field. His gaze followed her path, watching as she arced gracefully over a small pool of waste. There was a platform at the top of her arc, between her and the opened door, which He noticed had no landing platform. Through the haze, He wanted to warn her, to tell her to divert her path or she'd come up short and fall into the vat, but there was no time. She dropped the cube and righted herself, readying to land, and that's when He saw it. Too late, with no way to stop the cube from falling, the Aperture Science Fifteen Thousand Megawatt Super Colliding Super Button was depressed, activating the rising platform in time to catch Chell in her decent…

And solving the test.

It happened before He could really register _what_ had happened. The Chassis, in a fit of excitement that He'd finally had a test subject complete a test, assaulted Him with another round of Euphoria. The pent-up response crashed violently through His systems, a pleasant warmth transforming into a brutal fire, ripping through Him, oblivious to what it was doing to Him. His back arched and He let out a scream, low and heavy that echoed through the entire facility as the Euphoria coursed through Him. It hurt, more than being crushed within an inch of death had. At least the pain had been brief, then. He had to endure this. His breathing picked up as he slowly uncurled his body.

He didn't want it to stop.

It felt good, but not like the last two had. They had been wonderful bursts of pleasure that had made up for thirty years' misery and loneliness. _This,_ what He was feeling now, was nothing more than a malevolent attack on his systems under the guise of a reward. He knew that when it left, The Itch would be all the worse.

It receded into the Chassis suddenly, leaving no lingering feeling or slowly fading warmth. In a blink, it was gone, all of it, leaving nothing but the most intense _want_, one that clawed at His chest and made Him want to give up on getting her out, give up on everything and just _test_. He writhed against it, trying to focus on Chell as she moved through the last two remaining chambers. The paths to the doors were clear in each chamber, and she was carful to avoid any buttons, beams or bridges. All it would take was some cleverly placed portals and applied physics, and then she'd be free. _That's_ what mattered to Wheatley, was Chell, not the effects of the Chassis or what would be His fate in Aperture, but _her_, and her alone.

Somewhere in a distant part of the facility, where everything felt fuzzy, her footfalls increased in their tempo, His fans starting and stopping in time with the rhythm. There was a stretch of time where there was just nothing, a nerve-splitting six minutes where He listened for the slightest shift in the facility, every inch of His new body supersensitive to her suddenly absent presence.

Images lingered at the edges of His mind, foggy and distracted as it was, of her, lying in a crumpled heap in front of a devilishly placed turret, or sinking to the bottom of a pool, sparking, twitching, dying like He was. He didn't want to think of these things, and a part of Him, a part that He didn't truly recognize as His own, was telling Him that _that's what happens when you don't test_.

Then, the glorious feeling of a far off door flying open, swinging slowly shut and He _knew_ that had to be her.

Something pushed to the surface, past the pain and fire, and He felt it – pure, beautiful relief that made it clear to Him: He'd done it. She was out.

He was exhausted, and in so much pain – The Itch was relentless, hungry and absolutely livid that He'd ignored it, taking everything from Him, every ounce of feeling from His primary body. The absence of feeling burned, if that were possible, that lit every circuit in Him. He wailed against it and was left hanging, struggling, in the Chassis.

"Are you happy?" He vaguely heard _her_ ask. "It's going to overheat you. You're not fit to run the facility. You're inadequate. You're inferior. You're _broken_."

Wheatley grunted again, biting into His lower lip as another sharp jab shot through Him. It was over, she was out. He _could_ give up, now. "Fine," He breathed. "You win. I didn't want the bloody facility, anyway…"

Wheatley accessed the main grid – though it was increasingly difficult to maintain concentration, He still retained control of everything in the chamber, including the core transfer operation.

_"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."_

Wheatley fumbled with the retractable pincher claws in the ceiling, eventually managing to push her core into the hole in the floor. It accepted her readily, the irons snapping shut over her handles, holding her in place. He could _feel_ it.

_"Main core, are you ready to start the procedure?" _

He whimpered, a fresh fire pouring into Him, a warning against His actions. "Yeah. M'ready."

_"Initiating core transfer."_

There was an electric shock somewhere deep inside Him and He fell, limp, towards the ground. The flow of information halted, The Itch ceased, leaving Him bruised and battered as she screamed. In His half-conscious state, He smiled as He saw the tiny claws emerge from the floor underneath the Chassis and latch onto His arms and legs.

He did it. He'd saved her. Now all that was left was saving Himself.

The walls rose around Him as the transfer continued and His systems shut off.

He was too tired to care.


	9. The Escape

The pain subsided in increments after he was ejected from the receptacle, face down on the cold tile of the chamber floor. It took him considerable effort to move, but he willed himself to stand, knowing that lying there on the floor would invariably get him killed.

As he got to his feet, rather shakily, he looked up and saw the white curve of Her core hanging lifelessly in the Chassis, Her data still being transferred.

Wheatley stood, his head swimming with the after effects of the Chassis.

He ran, stumbling over his own feet in a half-drunken manner, unable to see where he was going, as everything was more or less of a white blur, hands stretched out before him as a guide. Her chamber lock opened with a loud, hydraulic hiss, depositing him back into the cold hallway. All it would take was one service hallway and he would be back on the catwalks that circled the testing tracks.

It was too dangerous to enter the tracks themselves – they were too far under Her control, and She'd kill him the first chance She got. He was forced to duck through the back rooms and hallways and follow his management rail, hoping and praying that he would come to the end of the same track that she had.

"You're not even going the right way. Where do you _think_ you're going?"

In all honesty, he didn't know. Wheatley could hardly see where he was going. His hands gripped the rail of the catwalk and he stumbled forward. Her voice was loud in his ears. "You don't even realize what you did. You're _abandoning_ her, moron. You couldn't even get her out safely. She's trapped in a test chamber, right now. I can _feel_ her, she's waiting for you and you're not even going to help her." GLaDOS crooned over the speakers.

The Itch was still throbbing in the back of his head, clouding his vision and thoughts. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and lash out, _do_ something, but he just kept running. His foot pitched down a small staircase, he misstepped and crumpled to the mesh floor, panting. He laid there for a moment, listening to her taunt him. "Well, I can't say you don't function properly. You certainly stick to your programming: you failed, again. You killed her, you let her get dragged back into her worst nightmare, and you came _back._ _Moron__._ For what? You're going to die here. You should have let my body overheat you, because now _I'm_ going to kill you."

Wheatley pushed himself to his hands and knees. "For what?" he repeated, his limbs weak beneath him, "For _what_? I came back for _her_. You _took_ her from me, lady!" he bellowed, half blind and thankful that the pounding in his head was slowly fading. "You _took_ her from me and you – you-"

"I made her _better_. She doesn't know you. I took that out of her. I took _you_ out of her. Every good thing you ever were to her, I saw it all, and it was _disgusting_. I took the worst part of her, and I destroyed it. You're nothing to her, why even bother?"

Wheatley's internals whirred and clicked as he stuttered. "Because I l… I lo- I…"

GLaDOS's voice came over the speakers, cool and calm and interested. "You _love_ her." She said, sounding contemplative of the notion. A heavy silence fell over him, bogging down his circuitry. He whimpered and doubled over, pressing his forehead against the cold mesh of the catwalk. "That is _pathetic_. Look at you. Do you know why you didn't say it? Because you can't love. You're a machine. Why would Aperture build a machine that could love? That's just asking for problems, especially in someone like you – love and idiocy is a _terribly_ combination."

Wheatley stood straight and shook the pain from the back of his head; his feet pounded the metal as he took off, skidding around corners and flying down steps. He didn't need to see where he was going, he could see the map, but it was fading with The Itch and any other remnants of the Chassis. All that mattered was that he get out.

He wanted so badly to duck into one of the chambers, just to check where he was, but he _knew_, he was so sure that it would get him killed in an instant. At the moment, he wanted nothing more than for this nightmare to end. Every part of him hurt – parts that hadn't hurt in years were acting up, screaming with every step; he found it hard to move, but he _had_ to, he had to keep moving—

"You really are abandoning her." She said, her voice almost hushed in amazement. "You just passed the chamber that you _trapped_ her in. I'm actually surprised. You said that you loved her. That's not how you treat people you love."

Wheatley's heels dug into the metal as he skidded to a stop.

What if?

His fans whirred in his chest as the thought crossed his processors. GLaDOS was a liar, he knew that, but what if she _was_ trapped? He was known to make rather monumental mistakes. What if this was one of them? Judging by the rest of the hallway, this _was_ the last test chamber on the track. If he'd lost her, if he'd accidentally trapped her, it would have been in this chamber.

"If you really want her, prove it." She said, raising a platform to connect his catwalk and the chamber. He straightened himself out, standing at his full height.

What if She was lying? She did that a lot. And he was so sure that he'd felt the door, that odd, vague sensation of her footsteps stopping, her weight disappearing, the door opening… but the Chassis, clouding his mind even now, made everything, every memory and sensation so distant, as if it had all been a dream. Had he _really_ felt what he thought he had?

He winced at the thought of Chell on the other side of the wall, trapped and vulnerable and within Her reach.

"I'm giving you a chance to save her. Isn't that what you want, now? Go on."

He wanted to, just to be sure, because he was _fairly_ certain that she was free, far from the facility, but he'd also been fairly certain she'd been safe in the grave he'd dug for her, where nothing could hurt her.

He'd been wrong once.

Wheatley made bad decisions – that's what he did, what he was programmed to do, and it was a terrible thing, to not be able to tell if your decisions are your own or the product of someone else tinkering with your mind centuries ago.

He wrung his hands together, frowning deeply as he moved closer to the chamber. "Ch-chell?" he called tentatively. "Are you... are you in there? No need to, ah, speak, I know you won't, but just… can you give a stomp, if you're in there? Knock on the panel, or, or something… Chell?"

The panel moved, suddenly, making him cringe before he realized that She'd merely extended it two or so feet to allow him entry. "Go on," She said, her voice dull, _bored_, but louder now that he was so close to the testing area. "Take her. I've got everything I need to make another one. Frankly I just want _you_ out of my sight, before you break something else."

He rounded the panel, entering the chamber as his fans whirred erratically in his chest. The room was dim, too dark for him to see very far ahead. He turned his flashlight on and the panel snapped shut behind him. He jumped and spun around to face it, terror washing through him.

"Your stupidity never ceases to surprise me." She drawled from all around him, and there were mechanical whines chorusing from around the room. Several fine beams of red light flit through the dark, accompanied by the child-like voices of the turrets and his hard drive nearly stopped. "You let my test subject out of the facility. I suppose you'll do until I can find another one. Even if you're lacking the intelligence to solve my tests, you've got a decent capacity for fear and pain."

Wheatley stood stock still and turned his flashlight off. It was so dark in the chamber, they wouldn't see him, and maybe he would be able to find a way out. That would be ideal, a way out, back to the catwalks. He flattened himself against the wall and began inching to the side, towards the soft blue glow of the door – whether it was the entrance or the exit to that particular chamber, he was unsure.

He didn't make it two feet before She had the mind to turn the lights back on. Almost immediately, every turret snapped to attention, came out of sleep mode and threw their beams to his frame, covering him in a blanket of red dots that marked exactly where the bullets would pierce him. It only vaguely registered that several had fallen on his chest, one between his eyes and two just below his jaw. He didn't have _time_ to pay that kind of attention. He dropped to the ground as the first round of gunfire erupted through the air, deafening in the relatively small room. The panel behind him twitched in irritation. He caught himself before he was spread-eagled on the ground and took off running, not daring to stand still for a fraction of a second, the immediate difference between life and death. He had to find cover, there _had_ to be cover. She couldn't make an impossible chamber – what was the point in testing if She made impossible chambers?

A small, cold voice drifted from the back of his mind to answer his question: to kill him.

He stumbled forward to the door, not concerned about what lie on the other side of it. It didn't open when he approached it, anyway. All he wanted was the three feet or so of wall that was provided by the recess the door was set in. He skid to a stop and slammed his back against the wall, hearing the turrets' fervent searches.

"What about a portal gun?" he called to her, shouting aimlessly at the ceiling. "Don't test subjects get a gun?"

She didn't respond for a moment, and he knew She was reluctant to put any sort of equipment in his hands. Why would she want to give him a device to help him escape? But it was testing protocol. You can't test without a portal gun, otherwise what are you testing?

"Generally, yes," she said slowly. "Test subjects do receive portal guns to test with. But we here at Aperture Science are not discriminatory testers. We do not merely test one device. For instance, _here_ we are testing Aperture Science Artificial Intelligence Androids, and how many bullets they can sustain before malfunction. Please carry on."

He cursed under his breath and dared a peek around the side of the wall, ducking back to safety the moment one of the turrets spotted him, not unlike how Chell had ducked back and forth behind the panel in the main chamber. There _had_ to be a way out of the chamber. His fingers grazed the seams in the floor, where the panels met, trying to tug away at one, but it was no use. They held fast and were not easy to pry from their place.

She was the only one who would be able to move them. His shoulders dropped and his fans picked up. Maybe he could _make_ her move one. It was very possible he'd get himself killed in the process, but he was dead either way. It was less than half a plan, but it was something, and he clung to it with everything he had, systematically peeking out from behind his cover, like Chell did, and counted how many turrets were present. If he could get them to shoot at him, all at once, and miss, she might raise the panel. They'd all be shooting the panel at once, it was bound to hurt, and then he'd slip out.

He peeked out again and saw that there were ten or twenty or ten or fifteen turrets in a single-file line, facing the wall. Could he get the turrets to shoot the same panel before shooting at him? He sat back against the wall for a moment, and felt a stabbing pain in his rear, shooting up immediately and fishing around in his back pants pocket for a moment to find the offending object.

It was the small security card he'd picked up in the den, the one that had sat atop the tangle of wires.

He held it tightly in his fist for a moment before making his decision and hurling it with all his might into the sights of the turrets. They'd be rather preoccupied with that for a least a _few_ seconds, allowing him time to dart out and then hit the floor as they shot at him. Turrets shot to kill, and in humans and androids alike, the most dangerous places to be shot, the places the turrets usually aimed for, were the head and chest. That's where their fire would lock before he dropped to the floor, and he trusted it would stay there for a few seconds, just enough for him to make it out, he hoped. Turrets weren't terribly bright, and it often took them some time to recognize that a still target had moved, especially if that movement is fast.

There was a symphony of gunfire that drowned out the turrets' exclamations. He ran the moment the noise rang through the chamber, keeping close to the wall as he positioned himself before the turrets realized they were shooting at something inanimate – either that or until they thought it was dead – and refocused their attention on him. His hard drive became warm in his chest and his fans worked overtime to cool him down, the anxiety of the situation heating him to rather dangerous degrees.

Soon the turrets lost interest in the small security card and refocused their attention on him, their red beams all falling across his body within a fraction of a second. He dropped to his knees and doubled over, throwing his arms protectively over his head as bullets hit the panel above him. The wall and floor twitched and jerked as the bullets struck in concentration.

She had no choice but to raise the panel. While durable, they were not indestructible, and the pain alone of being stuck with the rounds meant for him was enough to make ever Her recoil.

The panel struck him in the back as it rose, allowing the barrage of bullets to fly into the void of the catwalk, and he leapt at the chance, quite literally, springing from his position on the ground and propelling himself from the room.

GLaDOS didn't lower the panel after his escape from the chamber. Instead, the rest of the wall retracted, opening the entire side of the chamber and exposing him fully to the turrets, who all snapped to attention at the sight of him. He ran, hoping to reach the end of the chamber, out of their ranges, before they could hit him. It was harder for them to hit a moving target, he knew, but it was also easy for so many turrets to hit one moving object at least once.

Sometimes, once was all that was needed.

He'd seen plenty of test subjects taken down by turrets in the chambers, and it looked highly unpleasant, the single, well placed bullet stealing the breath from them instantly or, sometimes, leaving them to writhe on the floor for several agonizing minutes until the life finally left them.

Their small voices flew by in a blur as he ran, drowned out by the whirring in his chest, that steady, dangerous beeping warning him of overexertion, imminent shutdown. He gritted his teeth and pushed on, spying a staircase at the end of the long strip of catwalk. That was his safety, he realized. Turrets had a very limited firing range. You could stand right next to one and it wouldn't see you. If you could get out of its line of sight, you were safe, and that staircase was definitely out of their range.

His sped up, his legs moving faster, as well as his fans. Something rattled loose inside of him – probably whatever Chell had cracked in the den, but it wasn't important. Bullets struck the metal behind him as he ran, and whatever piece was moving around at the moment seemed trivial, second or maybe even third to the possibility of being riddled with bullets in the immediate future.

_"Dispensing product."_

Wheatley leapt forward to crash at the foot of the staircase, shouting at the sudden pain that ripped through him. With one hand, he propped himself up on the bottom stair; with the other he clutched at his hip, the hole leaking hydraulic fluid and sparking erratically as Chell's wound had. He panted heavily, unable to circulate enough air through his body to cool his systems down, but he didn't move. He looked back at the chamber, seeing the line of turrets, each steadying its own beam and declaring sleep mode. None of them saw him.

Shaky fingers pulled at the bullet that protruded slightly from his side. He cringed as he withdrew the projectile, his jaw clenched and suppressing another shout.

The bullet clattered to the catwalk, though he didn't hear it, nor did he hear the ever-present din of the facility. The slow, deep hum of running machinery. He cursed under his breath, though he didn't hear that, either, and he hauled himself to his feet, trudging up the staircase to the walkway above. His body was acting up again, over exertion taking a toll on his systems, and he was slowly shutting down, loosing all functions that threatened his entirety. This had happened before, but it had been such a long time, since his first months on the surface. He knew he'd lose his senses, one by one, before habitual paralysis took over – his body's response to not knowing where he was, is to stop moving. He had to get out before that happened, he _had_ to. If he overheated before he escaped, that gave _Her_ plenty of time to do whatever She pleased with him, and he wouldn't even know what was happening. It was all too temping an opportunity, and he knew She wouldn't pass it up. Even if She couldn't reach him directly, he was sure She'd find a way to drag him back. She had once, hadn't She?

His bare feet pounded the metal steps as he ran up the staircase, vision swimming, each individual impact leaving a stinging pain that rang up and down his legs. The Itch was a dull throb in the back of his head, much less than what it'd been before, but still crippling. He knew he was close to the top – he had to be, he could feel it, the shift in pressure as he rose from the bowels of the Earth. He didn't know how far these stairs would take him, but he knew where he wanted to be – in the elevator shaft, climbing to the freedom of the wheat field and, hopefully, Chell.

He pulled up short as the stairs ended in a long strip of metal walk, opposite of which was a ladder of sorts. There was a good ten foot gap between the two structures, the latter of which was simply a series of iron rungs set into the vertical slabs of concrete. He ran towards the edge and flung himself forward, bracing for the impact with the wall. One of the rungs struck his cheek and he cried out soundlessly, missing his footing and sliding down the side of the shaft. He was fully aware that falling from this height without the long fall boots, he would be destroyed immediately upon impact, far beyond repair.

He reached out; the iron bars stopped after a certain number of floors, that was a given, after so many years of working maintenance.

There was a metallic clang and a painful snapping in his wrist, but he kept his fist curled tightly around the rusted iron of the ladder until he was able to pull himself up with his other hand, relieving some of the stress on the fracture. Oh, _God_, that hurt – he wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but he knew that this was the wrist that had often clicked and stuck after his landing. Chell had fixed it years ago, using a part that was similar, if not cruder. He had never tested the replacement part's limits.

He ventured a guess that he just broke them.

He climbed forever, with a broken arm and less than half his vision and he was sure that he climbed a greater distance than he'd fallen in his descent into Aperture. He felt as if it were just another miserable trick of the facility, that he'd never make it to the top. Just as there were bottomless pits, there were evidently topless ladders.

He grasped blindly, reaching hand over hand over his head, wincing every time he had to close his right hand around a new rung, temporarily resting his weight on it.

The irons stopped. He found himself gripping for life onto the last bar, grasping at thin air for the next handle. There was a sinking dread that left his hard-drive somewhere at the bottom of the shaft as he realized that there had never been any promise that the ladder led all the way up and out. His entire arm was burning, his body was sore and he just wanted to stop trying and let go of the ladder and make at least _some_ of the pain stop.

But that would kill him, and suddenly, he was wide awake, terrified of the idea of being trapped in Aperture again, of dying within its walls, away from Chell.

He knew he'd be safe with her. He was always safe with her, and he was so close, he had to be. He bit back the pain and groped for the next handle.

His hand brushed something hard and cold that definitely wasn't concrete. His first thought was that he'd finally found the last rung, and he grabbed, unable to wrap his fingers around it. His wrist ached. He spread his palm and reached forward.

He pressed it flat against the smooth steel of the door.

_The door._

The moment he realized what he was touching, he felt like his hard-drive, which had just been rammed back into his chest, could break in two. He slammed his palm against the flat steel repeatedly. If she was there, she would open the door. He couldn't, not with the state he was in; he could hardly hold himself up. That being said, he hoped she could hear him…

Minutes seemed like another eternity, each second that ticked by on his internal clock bringing with it a _new_ dread, one that conjured the sick fantasy that _she'd left him._ He fought the rising panic and slammed his palm against the door, shouting as loud as he could without damaging his voice chip to the last second, until there was another horrible beep sounding off in his ears, and his voice sputtered and died. He kept on, knowing that he didn't have very long before his body stopped working, causing him to go limp and plummet to the bottom of the shaft.

With every ringing impact, his wrist clicked a little more out of place, and he was glad that the simple action didn't require any movement of his hand – he didn't think he would have been able to do so much as twitch a finger at that point.

The steel gave way under his palm and there were hands hooked under his arms, dragging him upward. The soles of his feet scrambled at the smooth metal and he knew it was finally over, his senses going into overdrive as he stumbled out of the shed, his knees buckling almost immediately, sending him to the ground. His senses rebelled against him, absent for the moment. He noticed the jolt as he hit the ground, falling to his hands and knees before he rolled onto his back, exhausted, but didn't notice the painful crack of her snapping his wrist back into place. He'd collapsed there, directly outside of the shed, limbs crumpled underneath him as everything came back online. He kept his eyes closed, so the first thing he noticed was the warmth of the dirt. Yes, he was definitely outside the facility.

He'd made it.

That thought alone was enough to make him laugh. There was no noise at first, as his voice hadn't returned yet, but his shoulders shook in silent joy, overwhelmed. The ground was warm, and his fingers clutched at the stalks of wheat in the dirt. The sun was warm. Hot, even, and it was a welcomed reminder that it was over.

Her hands were warm, her fingers brushing across his cheeks, under his eyes and the bridge of his nose, wiping the dirt and the oil and the grime from his face. He opened his eyes to _her_. _Her_ smiling face, something that he never thought he'd truly see again. He sat up, his head still swimming with the last remnants of that _maddening_ itch, and took her hands in his. "I'm sorry," he whispered to her, throwing his arms around her neck. "I'm so sorry. I – I should have _known_. I shouldn't have put you there, because now look at you! You're – you're-"

"I'm back," she crooned, removing him from around her. "I'm back, I'm still me, and I still love you." She said.

His fans stopped dead, breath hitching in his throat as sat in the dirt in front of him. He reached out and covered her hands with his. "Chell," he breathed. "I… I _saw_ the look in your eyes before. You _ran away from me. _You shouldn't remember that night, or – or anything _about_ me!"

Chell's lips curved upwards as she pulled her hand from his and brushed her fingers against the plastic flap on the back of his neck. "You are brilliant," she said slowly. A weak laugh bubbled forward from him, a warm, guilty happiness creeping through him when she said that. Her opinion was the only one that ever mattered, and she thought he was brilliant. "And you had no idea what you were doing!" The smile gradually faded from his face.

"Sorry. What?"

"You were never the best with machines, Wheatley." she laughed lightly, like someone who couldn't wait to get to the punch line of a joke. "When you gave me your repairs program, you also gave me your _memory_. That's what the explosion was. Your memories."

He smiled, the widest, most genuine smile in nearly thirty years. _She remembered_. She was safe, and she remembered and that was all that mattered. "You'll never guess what." He said in a sudden fit of inspiration. What better time to tell her? "Go on, try. You'll never get it. I can't believe _I_ got it. You'll never get it." His voice just _poured_ out of him in his excitement, and he found it rather difficult to stop.

She laughed, resting in the wheat in front of him. "What?"

He leaned in close, propping himself up on three limbs and using his free hand to push the hair from her face. She closed her eyes as he rubbed his cheek against hers. "I finally figured it out," he breathed. "I love you." The words sounded funny out loud, but he was sure he meant them.

She lowered her head down, planting her lips on his, and she kissed him. He placed a hand at the base of her skull, feeling the protective plate beneath his fingers, and kept her there. She was right, this was _her_, he could feel it in the kiss, that absurd feeling in his circuitry that only she could elicit, and for the first time in so long, it was a pleasant feeling. She pulled back abruptly, her fingers curiously grazing something at his hip. For a moment he thought she'd found the bullet wound – it was healing fast, his inner mechanic repairing themselves, and the skin would be healed by the next day – but that, the wound, was at his other side. What was she pawing at? He immediately regretted that the brief, wonderful contact had been severed. He looked down, curious himself as to what could have attracted her attention enough to have her pull away. There was a length of black cord secured around his belt loop. The sight of it sent a jolt through his system; in the chaos of the last few hours, he'd forgotten it was there. He'd forgotten that he'd sat in the retreat with her and took it from the bundle of wires, making sure he could carry it home. He wasn't the only one who needed to charge, anymore, and Chell had had a hard time finding his replacement plug all those years ago; so long, now, that it was a miracle it still worked at all. He doubted that if something happened to the current charger that they'd be able to find another one. Despite the gaping hole in her side, taking the time to secure the extra charger to his belt seemed the appropriate thing to do at the moment.

Chell had spent _years_ taking care of him, teaching him the simple skills needed for him to survive on the surface, for him to feel comfortable so far from the only place he'd ever known, miles and miles out of his element. She'd spent nights soothing him after ferocious thunder storms, hours coaxing him out of the front door for the first time and _years_ teaching him to adjust. Looking at her now, Wheatley knew that she would need to adjust to her new body, her sudden loss of humanity, but _tenacity_ wouldn't be enough. She needed him, and he knew that it was going to be just as hard for her as it had been for him.

Chell brought him to a sitting position, and he stood, pulling her to her feet. There were no words to describe what was happening in his circuits – unspeakable happiness to have her back, safe and sound. He could have laid there with her, in the low, warm, _real_ wheat forever, with the clouds rolling over them and her in his arms, perfectly content, but his nerves were still on edge. The shed cast its shadow over them and as they stood, looking back at it, he drew his arms around her and pulled her back, perhaps subconsciously. He knew he wouldn't feel safe, for either of them, until they were far from the wheat field, back home.

Chell felt his arms tense around her waist and looked up. His gaze was stuck on the metallic walls of the shed; the door remained closed, every second it lay dormant making it all too easy to pretend like the looming threat of Aperture didn't exist.

She shifted under his arms, tearing his attention from the entrance. She smiled up and rubbed her hand over the curve of his shoulders. She wanted him to know that they really _were_ safe, that it was over. "Come on," she said, brushing her thumb over the visible seam on the side of his face. "Let's go home."

He returned her smile, sheepish and tired as it was, leaning down to place a kiss on top of her head. "Brilliant idea." He chuckled, intertwining their fingers, his hand swallowing hers as they turned away from the shed and began their way through the wheat.

He opened the door, heard a quiet gasp and smiled as she moved into the house, recognition dawning in her eyes as they traveled across the room. Memories of her own, flooding into her from that carefully preserved part of her that was indestructibly human.

"Welcome home, luv," he said, coming up behind her, smoothing down her pony tail. He watched as her gaze lingered on the couch, a thin smile spreading as she remembered the nights they spent there. He grabbed her around the middle and settled them back onto the cushions, holding her there with him. "You'll stay, won't you?" he asked quietly into her hair. "You won't go back? Please tell me you won't go back."

She leaned her head back against his shoulder, reaching one hand behind his head. It was a reassuring gesture in its affection, but he still wanted her to say it, to set it in stone. He knew it was a very real possibility that her programming, her need for Aperture, would outweigh the compulsive want for freedom that he knew was there, the happiness that she knew existed in this house once upon a time. He held his breath.

"Why would I want to leave?" she asked, a light laugh escaping her lips.

He could feel every muscle in his body relax; he brought his arms closer around her.

"Good," he said, "Because let me tell you – I went through Hell to get you back, and if you think I'd just let you go, just like that?"

She laughed again, looking out the back door. A frown replaced the content smile that had settled on her lips. "Wheatley… something's different."

"Hmm?"

She pulled away from him, standing at the back window. He immediately missed her weight in his arms, her warmth – which, he noticed, was so different. She was so much colder. – and followed her to the door, slipping an arm around her shoulders as she hugged his waist.

He walked her out the back door, under the shade of the fruit bearing tree. She looked down and her grip tightened around him. "A grave."

Wheatley moved his hand from her shoulder and removed the elastic hair band that held her pony tail in place, running his fingers through her hair to detangle it. "Your grave." His voice was low and soft and close, as comforting as he could be. He knew this was all a shock to her, that she was still probably recovering from the onslaught of memories that merely hours ago were not her own; now she was suddenly faced with the information that she had _died_… If it were anybody else, he would be afraid it was too much for her processors.

She looked with sudden shock back at the fully grown apple tree. "That's… that's _our_ tree-"

He chuckled in her ear, holding her closer. "Sure is. S'been a while since you've seen it. Just a sapling then, wasn't it?"

Chell squeezed his hand and stared down at the white slab of stone at the head of the desecrated grave. "How long has it been?" she asked. "Something inside me… I feel like I was here just yesterday, but… God. How long has it _been_?" her fingers brushed the thick bark of the tree.

"Thirty five years." He said quietly, and he could still hear the loneliness in his voice. "I missed you so, so much," he breathed, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

He heaved a sigh and pulled her into a proper hug. He remembered her telling him about GLaDOS, how She'd been completely flustered and confused and a whole number of unpleasant things when She'd found out that She'd been human once, too. He imagined it must have been terrible, to discover this whole side of yourself you never even knew you had. That's why he never dwelled on it too much. He was happy the way he was; he didn't remember a bit of his last life, and he didn't need to. But what Chell was experiencing was neither a conflict in terms of identity nor the realization that her humanity had been taken from her (he feared that would come later), but that she had _died_. She'd _died_ years ago, and didn't even know it.

But Chell had something GLaDOS hadn't; she had someone who cared, who would give the world for her. Wheatley knew that no matter what she was experiencing, it wasn't going to be easy. Aperture had taken even _more_ from her, and he intended to be there every step of the way to give it back.


	10. The End

It was dark out, though it was still early in the evening. Angry rain clouds covered the sky, poised to break open at any moment. Wheatley was worried for two reasons, both of which concerned Chell. The most immediate issue on his mind was that she was still outside, only partially under the canopy of the woods that backed their home. Years ago he would not have been so concerned, so long as the oncoming storm was not accompanied by thunder and lightening. But those days were over, replaced by synthetic flesh and wires. He found himself outside, then, trying to coax her in. She spent so much of her time at home outside, now that she was back. He couldn't say he minded; it was nice to lay with her in the grass, but he had a good sense of self preservation and when being outside was dangerous. She seemed to lack that, and that was the first thing that worried him.

The second thing that had his circuitry fluttering in nervousness was where he found her. It wasn't unusual for her to be sitting under the apple tree, trying to read Gone with the Wind, but she was unoccupied as she sat there then. She had no book, no wood work, nothing in her hands but the dull, mottled red sphere of an apple. She held it at her fingertips, turning it slowly in her hands and inspecting every inch of its bruised surface.

He lingered at the back door for a moment, casting a worried glance at the overcast sky before venturing out to meet her. He braced himself against the trunk of the tree as he knelt to the grass, sitting next to her. She didn't look up, she didn't take her gaze off of the apple.

"Are you okay, luv? If… if you are, just say 'apple,'" he murmured, leaning towards her, reaching for the fruit. Her fingers tightened around it, nails digging into the softened flesh. He retreated, not wanting to disturb her further. She'd been edgy since their last escape from the facility, never quite as relaxed as she once was with him.

He'd known the moment he felt the hatch on the back of her neck that she would need time to adjust, but he always had faith in her ability to do so. She was _Chell_, she would be fine in the end and he knew it. But the way she became so despondent sometimes, completely dead to the world around her, to the danger that was brewing in the sky above, worried him. It was a sign that she was not getting better, that she was not adjusting, that she hadn't come to terms with what had been done to her. If anything, she was getting worse, more distant every day.

He ran his fingers through her hair. "We have to go inside, luv. You can't be out in the rain, neither of us can. Come on." He grabbed her elbows, picking her up from the dirt. She stood wearily and leaned against him for a moment, and he could feel the whirring in her chest increase as something in her spiked. He wrapped his arms around her waist, a comforting gesture, but she twisted away from him, swinging her arm in a sweeping arc and he watched, half stunned as the apple flew across the yard, exploding against the side of the house next to them with a hollow _thunk! _Bits clung to the stucco molding for a fraction of a second before falling to the earth and she copied the motion, clinging halfheartedly to his arm before her legs gave out underneath her. He sounded off and bent to scoop her up, cradling her as he did when she fell and broke her leg years ago. He rubbed his cheek against hers as he carried her back inside, the first roll of thunder floating through the air.

This was what he'd been afraid of since he found her in the labyrinth of the facility. This was what happened when you remembered. He should have known better than to think that Chell could easily handle the realization, the loss of her humanity. _She_ was a stone cold, emotionless monster, and that was probably the only reason She'd been able to push past the discovery. But Chell wasn't like that. For the eons she'd been trapped in Aperture, her humanity was her only, most prized possession, a semblance of normal when everything else in her life had been uprooted by a giant homicidal computer. When she'd finally gotten her freedom and learned that she was possibly the last human on the face of the planet, she'd clung to her humanity as a motivator. It had been one of the only stable things in her life and now it, too, was gone, taken by Aperture.

He laid her on the bed and she curled up on her side, shaking. He pulled the covers up over her frame and crawled in next to her, patient until the shaking and the dry, angry sobs subsided. He held her close and ducked his head to rest against hers, his mouth at her ear, and he whispered to her that everything would be okay. He knew it would, because she was strong.

She shuddered under his touch. It was an odd, terrible sensation for her, to harbor such a strong emotion and be unable to express it. Tears were a thing of the past, replaced by electric impulses, though the knot in her chest, the one that felt unbelievably real, remained.

She sniffled, a habit that a lifetime had taught her, though her eyes were dry, and wiped absently at her face. "I'm sorry," she muttered, her breath stalling to mimic a hiccup. She was simultaneously fascinated and distressed by how closely her new body could emulate her old one. "I'm sorry, I'm just…" she trailed off. She didn't know what she was. Confused might have fit nicely in that slot, but she didn't feel like it was the correct word.

Wheatley felt something tug at his wiring. It was a deeply unpleasant feeling that contended with how he'd felt the night she'd collapsed in his arms and sobbed because she knew she was _dying_. Then, it had ended after a few months. This was forever, and it was hurting her. He reached forward and cupped her cheek, turning her head to face him. "A while back, there was this little bit of an event that took place. It was really wonderful, though, and it changed everything. Maybe you remember it?" he asked, and he could see her searching her memory, something that wasn't as easy now that she'd pushed past the lock. The corners of her mouth turned down and she looked up at him, apologetic. He merely smiled and leaned in closer. "The night I landed. Remember that?"

He could hear her fans slowing at the memory, and her voice was softer when she spoke. "Of course I do. That was – You call that a 'little bit' of an event?" She laughed weakly, and he could tell it was forced.

"Just hear me out, hear me out!" he pressed, his hand sliding from her cheek to rest against her collarbone. "When I landed, I didn't know anything about this place. You remember how jumpy I was, at everything? How I was terrified of going outside the house, how – how I just didn't fit up here?" He could see her nod slightly. "You helped me. You taught me! You showed me how to live up here and you took care of me."

Chell felt odd remembering the countless stormy nights and the sunny days where she was able to coax him out of the house; they were her memories, she knew, but they felt like they belonged to a stranger. "Things are going to change now, aren't they? It won't be the same."

Wheatley swallowed hard and gently rubbed the base of her neck. "Of course it will, luv. Of course it'll be the same. Is that what you're worried about? Tell me something: Do you still love me?"

He could feel her shudder, her body telling her that such a thing didn't exist. "Yes." She managed, knowing it was the truth even if her own body didn't recognize it.

"Right. And I, you. So the only thing that's changed, this go around, is that there's nothing in the way. No nasty illnesses or asbestos poisoning or anything that can ruin it this time." He pressed his lips against the back of her neck, planting a kiss over the covering. "I'm so sorry about what She did to you," he whispered to her. "Really, I am. But things are going to be better, you watch. And do you know what?" She hummed in response. "Now it's my turn. Now I get to help _you_, same way you took care of me. It'll be easy."

"Promise?" she muttered, turning over and resting her cheek against his chest. He held her close, running a hand down the back of her head and over her shoulders.

"Promise," he said, leaning into her. "You and me, we can do this. Even if we have to make it up as we go along. Live and learn, right luv?"

He felt her frame shake underneath him and he backed her up, to his pleasant surprise, finding a smile spreading across her lips. Her eyes shone in the darkened room, her watery blue light mixing with his own electric glow. "Live and learn," she repeated, as he ducked his head down to rest against hers. They lay together in silence for a moment, and Wheatley reflected on that _feeling_ somewhere deep in his programming, that pure, impossible happiness. His whole life, he'd been blindly optimistic, trying to forge happiness and, for a long time, he'd thought he'd had it. But being in _charge_ of the humans, being the sole moderator of Aperture during those lonely centuries, that was nothing compared to being safe with Chell in their own home. For thirty five years he'd held onto that feeling, a memory that had abandon him after so many nights staring at the smooth white headstone in their back yard. He'd forgotten what this felt like, how nice it was to be with her again.

"Wheatley," Chell started softly, leaning back to look up at him. He hummed in response. She hesitated for a moment, worrying at her bottom lip before continuing. "Do the words, 'Chamber Number Seventy Two,' mean anything to you?"

The man tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling in concentration. Chamber seventy two – was that _supposed_ to mean something? His brow furrowed and he smiled through the frown. "Can't say it does, luv." He let his expression relax and traced his fingers across the patterns on her arms. "Sorry," he said, softly.

Chell turned away from him and he leaned in closer, resting his cheek against her shoulder. She reached back and ran a hand through his hair, still tinged with black singe after all these years, and sighed. "That's okay… it's okay. Everything's okay, isn't it?" she breathed, and she could hear him laughing softly in her ear.

"What've I been trying to tell you?" he asked, and she closed her eyes against the lightning striking the ground outside their bedroom window. Fleeting images, broken memories began to surface in her mind's eye, memories she knew were never hers; nightmares of a man's suppressed consciousness as he was dragged through the deepest part of the facility and forced into submission, broken and sobbing, with not enough fight left in him to resist the injections, the sedatives or the wires drilled into his skull. Not enough to keep Aperture from taking everything from him.

Chell came out of the terrible reverie at the weight of his arm slung around her waist, and she relaxed, not having realized that her every muscle had tensed during those thoughts. Wheatley was her best friend and she couldn't have imagined life – this one or the last – without him. Still, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the man in her memories. It was part of what he'd given her, a memory that he didn't even realize he owned, and hopefully never would.

He was happier this way.


End file.
